


How Do You Keep An Idiot In Suspense?

by TwoKidsInATrenchCoat



Series: Isn't That Lovely [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: All mistakes are mine, Brother and sister bonding, Childhood abandonment, F/F, F/M, Human AU, Multi, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Social Isolation, TW: Homophobia, TW: Telling a Repressed Minority to be Calm, The Diamonds are bad parents but good grandparents, The TW are only for Chapter 15, constructive criticism is welcome, polyamous relationship, sorry if I get anything wrong about how foster systems or orphanages work, this summary sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2020-12-12 04:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 41,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20986271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoKidsInATrenchCoat/pseuds/TwoKidsInATrenchCoat
Summary: After spending most of her life in foster care, waiting for her mother to come back for her, Spinel was heartbroken to find out not only that her mother had no intention of ever coming back, but that she had gone off and started a whole new family!Infuriated by this new discovery Spinel goes to Beach City to get revenge on the people who her mother had replaced her with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any confusion I may have caused by switching everything around.  
Here is the new first chapter for How Do you Keep and Idiot In Suspense?  
Something to take note of: Spinel calls White Grandmother, Yellow Gran, and Blue Grandma

Pink Diamond was the daughter of White, Yellow, and Blue Diamond, the three CEOs of Homeworld Inc. She lived the a mansion with her mothers (that had been dubbed “The Palace”) along with her own daughter Spinel.

However, this identity of Pink Diamond only existed at night. Unbeknownst to her mothers and daughter, during the day when she went off to work, Pink Diamond became Rose Quartz and led her second life happily married to Greg Universe and being the loving mother of her son Steven Universe.

Pink/Rose lived her double life for many years, making sure to keep her two families separate and unaware of the other's existence. Only visiting her son during the day and her daughter during the night.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, because when Spinel is six and Steven is three that there is a mess up.

\---------------------------------------

Despite her silly nature, Spinel had always been a bright and curious child. So as soon as she was old enough to be able talk, Spinel began to ask questions, “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do worms live in the ground?” “Why were swear words invented if we’re not allowed to say them?” For the most part she always got an explanation, but there was always one question that she could never seem to get a proper answer to, “Where does Momma go everyday?” From what she had heard from her other classmates, it wasn’t standard for the momma to only come home at night and be gone before the sunrise. While she did have a handful of classmates whose moms also worked during the day, the difference was that their momma’s were able to tell them where they went everyday. Meanwhile all the pink haired six year old got was a shrug of the shoulders or the subject was changed. So Spinel took it upon herself to find out where her Momma went everyday.

For a couple of days in a row Spinel got up extra early and watched her momma leave the Palace from her bedroom window. Spinel noticed that everyday she went East. The six year old remembered that the beach was East and that the mansion was already pretty close to the beach. Momma couldn’t exactly drive further than the ocean, so that meant that Momma was going to the beach everyday. “But why?” she wondered.

So one day after Spinel was dropped off from school, she immediately asked her teacher to use the bathroom. The teacher gave her the hall pass but Spinel immediately went in the opposite direction towards the school’s garden. Spinel knew that she needed to move quickly if she didn’t want to get caught. She weaved her way through the sloppily painted flower pots and dying tomato plants and reached her goal at the otherside of the area. An old fence that Spinel knew had a loose board. She had discovered it by accident one day, bumping into the post during a game of tag. She had neglected to tell anyone about it, worried that she would be accused of breaking it. Now she was really thanking her past self for keeping her mouth shut.

She moved the loose plank aside, squeezed through, and put it back into place, cringing each time it creaked and groaned. But eventually she was on the other side. Remembering that Gran had taught her that the sun rises in the East, Spinel looked up in the sky and started to make her was over towards the beach.

As Spinel walked she started to fantasize about what Momma could be doing at the beach. Maybe she was a life guard, saving people’s lives everyday. Or maybe she went to help pick up the trash and save the environment. Or maybe she went to the bottom of the sea to find sunken treasure and battle sea serpents! Yeah, that last one was probably it.

Spinel eventually arrived at the beach, but once she stopped to look around, she realized just how poorly she had thought this through. Who knew that the beach was so big! Her momma could be anywhere!

Just as Spinel began to feel overwhelmed and tears well up in her eyes, her downward spiral was interrupted by the pleasant sound of guitar strings. The song sounded nice and comforting. Spinel didn’t have much of a plan, so she decided to follow the music. She weaved through the crowd and stuck to the sides of the buildings, doing her best to stay out of sight. That last thing she wanted was for somebody to ask her where her parents were. 

Spinel continued to follow the music until hope and joy lit up in her chest as a mass of curly pink hair came into view. She’d found Momma! Spinel’s first instinct was to rush over and wrap her arms around the woman, but she quicky remembered that she wasn’t exactly supposed to be there.

Using her hide and seek skills to remain out of sight, Spinel remained in the background and observed the situation. Momma appeared to be having a picnic in the sand. The guitar strums where coming from a man with a beard and brown long hair, who was also sitting on the blanket.

Next to the man was a little kid, who looked to be younger than Spinel. The toddler had dark brown eyes and curly hair of the same color, and appeared to be unsuccessfully eating a sandwich, because despite Momma’s attempts to help him eat it, the majority of the sandwich had ended up on his cheeks and around his mouth instead of in his mouth.

After Momma had helped to clean the sandwich off of the toddler’s face, she turned to the man with the guitar and Spinel was close enough to faintly hear her something about going to the bathroom. As her momma got up and left Spinel knew that this might be her only chance to get answers without getting caught by her momma.

She was hesitant to talk to a stranger, especially with how many times Grandma had stressed to the overly sociable child that she couldn’t just go up and speak to whomever she wanted. Strangers were dangerous, but if the man playing the guitar was a friend of Momma’s, then he was a friend of hers. Which technically meant that he wasn’t a stranger! With that logic Spinel allowed herself to get closer.

The little girl snuck around until she was behind him. Then she asked him, “Who are you?” He let out a yelp of surprise and swung his head around so quickly that she had to jump back, narrowly avoiding getting hit in the face with his hair. “Holy-! Where did you come from! You came outta nowhere!” Spinel shrugged, trying her best to imitate her yellow haired grandmother who always looked so serious and mysterious, “I’m good at hide and seek.” Before the man could respond, the toddler at his side lets out a squeal, clearly wanting attention and feeling left out.

The man picked up his son and placed the little boy in his lap, but was still careful to keep an eye on Spinel, in case she were to try to vanish as mysteriously as she had appeared. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Spinel decided that it’s her turn to ask the questions, “You still haven’t answered my question. Who’re you?” The man paused for a second, clearly not knowing what to make of her. It was almost like he didn’t have random six year olds coming up to him at the beach to ask him questions everyday, “Oh right. I’m Greg Universe,” he told her with a smile, “and this is Steven.” He gestured to the toddler who’s hunger had apparently not been sedated by the sandwich because he began trying to stuff his shirt into his mouth.

This caused the shirt to ride up and that was when she saw it. A birthmark right over his bellybutton. If she squinted, it looked kind of like a circle with a pentagon inside of it. It reminded her of the birthmark on her momma’s stomach. Although Momma’s looked more like a triangle with a bunch of straight and zigzag lines.

As Spinel watched Mr. Greg try to convince Steven that his shirt was not going to make a good snack, she couldn’t help but feel a little envious of the boy. She had always wished that she had been born with a birthmark, that way she could be more like Momma. She even once took a sharpie and tried to mimick it once but unfortunately, the sharpie rubbed off and stained her shirt which got her a scolding from Gran. So she never tried that again.

The subject of her momma made Spinel remember why she was here in the first place. She needed to stop getting so distracted! Spinel decided to just ask the question straight out, “How do you know my-?” But she got cut off once more when a seagull came to raid the picnic. Mr. Greg managed to shoo it away, but not before it managed to steal the sandwich he had been holding.

Spinel was abut to ask her question again, but she was once again cut off by the sound of sniveling. Apparently, the bird had scared Steven because those big brown eyes started to become watery and there were the sounds of quiet sniffles that only started to get louder. Steven was going to cry. This was unacceptable! Immediately, every other thing Spinel had on her mind went out the window and she became solely focused on cheering this little boy up.

Spinel had had a lot of practic cheering people up. At her school, if there was a new kid or one that was just having a bad day, she found that she always knew what to do to make them smile again. Whether it was a simple knock knock joke or juggling various pencils and erasers until the teacher told her to stop it, and use the school supplies for its intended purpose. In Steven’s case, she went with an old reliable, funny faces.

The pink haired girl stuck her tongue out and waved her hands around her face. When this got a smile from the little boy, Spinel decided to up her game just for the heck of it. She did a couple of handstands and cartwheels, clapping her feet together whenever they were in the air. Soon enough the three year old boy was giggling and trying to clap his own feet, as opposed to normal applause, to show his appreciation for the performance.

Then Spinel suddenly stopped, turned rightside up, and she was silent. She got up real close to Steven, put her hand over her mouth, and exhaled, making a farting sound. This caused both children to dissolve into complete laughter and even earned some genuine chuckles from Mr. Greg. After the three of them calmed down, Mr. Greg turned to the picnic basket and got out another sandwich to replace the one that the seagull had taken during its raid. Spinel’s mouth practically watered at the sight of the sandwich. It turns out that following your mother all the way to the beach will burn a lot of calories especially for a six year old. Mr. Greg noticed the way that she was looking a the sandwich and was nice enough tear it in half and give her the bigger piece.

Mr. Greg spoke again while Spinel chewed on the sandwich, “Thanks for your help, but I have to ask, where are your par-” but before he could get the words out, Spinel felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up the see a towering figure in a blue uniform. It was a police officer, here to take her back to the school. “Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother are gonna kill me,” Spinel thought with a shutter.

Before taking her back, the officer asked Mr. Greg some questions, but Spinel barely registered what they were talking about, because suddenly she saw a bunch of pink hair come into view. Mr. Greg and Steven’s backs were to her momma so they didn’t spot her. But Spinel did and even from the distance she was at, she could tell that Momma wasn’t happy to see her there. There was a look of anger, disappointment, and  _ unhappiness _ in Momma’s eyes. Oh God! She had made Momma, her bestest friend in the whole wide world,  _ unhappy _ !

Spinel was jerked from her thoughts as the police officer began guiding her back to the cruiser. But before she could get too far, Spinel heard a noise from behind her. A look over her shoulder allowed her to see that Steven was sticking his tounge out at her. To an onlooker, this might have looked like he was being rude and making fun of her, but Spinel realized that he was trying to make a funny face. He was trying to get her to stay.

When his attempt at persuading Spinel to remain with him didn’t work Steven began making grabby arms at her, obviously displeased to see her go. To compromise, Spinel shot one last funny face over her shoulder sticking out her tounge and exaggerating her mouth (showing that amatuer how it was really done). This managed to get one more giggle out of the Steven before she was led around the corner and she lost sight of her newest friend.

After being led around the corner, Spinels demeanor immediately changed. She went completely mute and just sat there with her thoughts as the police officer took her back to school; as she sat in the principle’s office; and as Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother picked her up to take her home. Spinel was only half listening to when they were scolding her for leaving school and talking to a random man. But given how uncharacteristically quiet she was being, she had a feeling that they were going easy on her. In the end they just sent her to her room and said that they would discuss it later.

The day went on and Spinel just sat still on her bed doing nothing. This was a new experience for her. She was  _ always _ doing something. She thought about all of the things that she could be doing right now. She could be catching up on the classwork that she had missed, she could playing with her toys, she could be reading the latest edition of The No Home Boys and pretend that she herself was running away from this situation. But Spinel couldn’t bring herself to do any of that. She felt like she didn’t deserve to do any of those things that made her happy. The look of disappointment and anger on Momma’s face replayed over and over again in her head.

Why had she gone off to find Momma? Why couldn’t she have stayed at school like she was supposed to? Why could she have been a good kid? If she had just stayed in place everything would be fine!

When the sun began to go down, her grandmothers called her down for dinner. There was a tense silence at the table for a couple of minutes. “Spinel-,” Gran started. “When is Momma coming home?” her grandaughter uncharacteristically cut her off, but Spinel couldn’t help it. She was dreading having to see that look of unhappiness on Momma’s face again. “Well...that’s the thing you see. We just received a message from her saying that she has to be somewhere and wouldn’t be coming home tonight.”

Spinel’s shoulders begin to quiver. All three of the eldest Diamonds looked at one another not quite sure what to do. “Does Momma hate me?” “No no no.” “She doesn’t hate you!” “I’m sure that she would be here if she could.” All three of the women came to surround Spinel and gave her a group hug. Spinel wanted that moment to last forever. To just hide in their arms and never have to face the world again. But unfortunately, the hug did have to end eventually.

Once released, the youngest Diamond heard Grandmother say to, “Wait here.” After her mass of white hair disappeared into the hall, Spinel shared a look with Gran and Grandma, but both of them just gave her confused shrugs. 

Grandmother came back with a small black box in hand. Realization lit up in Gran and Grandma’s eyes and they both nodded in approval at whatever was happening right now. Grandmother set the box on the table in front of the pigtailed girl, “We had planning on waiting for your birthday to give this to you, but there’s no time like the present.” Spinel resisted letting out at giggle at the spikey haired woman’s unintended pun.

Tentatively, the granddaughter opened up the box and gasped at what she saw inside. It was a shiny, pink, heart shaped locket, with a small silver chain strung through it. Daintily, Spinel took the necklace, behaving as if she made one wrong move it would suddenly shatter. Carefully, the child put the gift around her neck and felt a glow inside of her as she felt the heart resting against her chest.

Spinel looked up at her grandmothers with stars in her eyes and she tackled all three of them to the ground. The little girl’s arms stretching impossibly wide to capture all three of them into her embrace, saying thank you, that it was so beautiful, and how she was going to take very good care of it.

The rest of the night was spent with Spinel’s grandmothers reassuring her that she was forgiven as long as she never tried to do something like that ever again. The pink haired six year old wondered if she was going to receive similar treatment from her mother, or if her best friend in the whole wide world was going to hold a grudge. Spinel did her best to push those troublesome thoughts away and not think about it for the rest of the night.

\----------------------------------------------

It was a couple of days after Spinel received her heart locket that Momma came back. Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother were out on a business trip, so they informed her excitedly the day before that Momma would be taking her to school.

When she saw Momma come through the door, Spinel ran up to her and smiled, eager to show off her new necklace. She was exited to show her what she had managed to shove into the tiny locket. It was an old photo of Momma when Spinel had still been in her belly, before she had changed her appearance. It took a lot of explaining on her grandmothers’ part for Spinel to understand what Momma had done to change her appearance. While Spinel didn’t understand why her momma had done it, Spinel still loved her no matter what she looked like.

Knowing that her momma might still be upset, Spinel decided to first mention proudly that she had managed to get caught up on all of the classwork and homework from the day she had missed, hoping that it might please her momma to hear this. She said that she thought that her teacher was going to be really proud of her.

“You had to make it up because of the day you took to run away to the beach, right?” Spinel looked guilty. “You didn’t tell them that I was there did you?” Spinel looked alarmed. Should she have said something? Pink let out a light chuckle, “No no. It’s good that you didn’t tell them.” 

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, I forgive you for following me.”

_ I forgive you _ . Those words flooded Spinel with relief. Spinel was so happy to be back in her mother’s good graces that she couldn’t bother to ask more questions about Mr. Greg and Steven.

The grandfather clock chimed, signaling that it was time to go to school. Spinel began to walk towards the front door but her mother stopped her. The pink hair woman had a mischievous glint in her eye, “What do you say that we skip today as well?” Spinel nervously looked down and fidgeted with her hands as she protested lightly, “I don’t think I otta. Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother made me cross my heart not to ditch again.” “But don’t you want to catch up on all that playtime we lost while I was away? I really want to play games with **my** **best friend**.” Those last three words caused Spinel to look up in amazement. She had referred to her mother as her best friend on multiple occasions before, but that was the first time that Momma had said that Spinel was her best friend. With that, Spinel’s mind quickly went to work rationalizing, “Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother were mad that I had been alone. But now Momma is here and she would never let anything bad happen to me.”

Pink took her daughter back inside and they went to the garden. They played for hours and hours. They played tag, hide and seek, and red light green light. Spinel also juggled for Pink and showed off all of the all of the different flips and tricks she had learned from the gymnastics program she had been attending everyday after school.

With every flip and trick her mother would smile and clap her hands in delight. This made Spinel so happy, the sound of her momma’s laughter motivated Spinel to do another headstand. A frown did not look good on her momma, but her smile brightened up the whole area. Speaking of brightness, the way that the sunlight bounced off of her mother’s hair was not lost on Spinel. It was a sight that she didn’t get to see alot because typically she and her mother only played underneath the stars. Spinel thought that her mother looked much prettier in the sunlight, that the way it made her pink hair shine was gorgeous. When Spinel told her as much, while doing a handstand, Pink gave a wistful smile and said, “Don’t worry, soon I’ll be spending all of my time in the sun.” Spinel didn’t quite know what that sentence meant, so she just let it go and did another cartwheel.

Once the sun was high in the sky, they went back inside to have lunch. Over their meal, Pink told Spinel that once she was done eating, the little girl needed to empty her backpack of school supplies and pack some clothes, books, and toys, because they were going on an adventure.

Hearing this news almost caused Spinel to spit out her food. She gasped and looked at her mother with stars in her eyes, “We’re going to be like The No Home Boys!” Spinel eagerly raced up to her room and packed up her bag while her momma stood in the doorway watching her progress. Along with her toothbrush, Spinel also made sure to pack: a couple of her favorite No Home Boys books, DVDs of the black and white cartoons she and Gran liked to watch, and her locket. She would never forgive herself if she left that locket behind.

The drive to wherever it was they were going was a bit long, but Spinel filled up the silence by showing off her locket to Momma. “And I can open it up and put whatever I want in it!” Spinel still couldn’t bring herself to tell the woman behind the wheel about what was already in the locket. What if Momma got mad at her for taking the photo? What if Momma doesn’t like that it’s a photo of how she looked before? It was better if Spinel didn’t say anything.

After the car was parked, they walked (Spinel skipped) to a big office building. Pink promised her daughter that they were here to play another really fun game and that it could only be played at this building. Inside, they met with a woman who had short blue hair, and was wearing a suite and a monocle. She introduced herself as Ms. Zircon.

Ms. Zircon led them down a couple of halls. As they walked Pink informed Spinel in a hushed whisper that the game was a game of patience, “No, not like playing doctor. It’s a waiting game. You are going to wait here for me to come back and if you are still here when I get back you win! Ms. Zircon is here to help you win the game so you’re going to have to listen to her.”

The game didn’t sound fun at all. It sounded even less appealing because of the hiatus that her mother had taken. The little girl was hesitant to be separated from her mother again, but Spinel was assured that this would be the funniest game yet. “Common Spinel, I know you can win!” Pink smiled wide at the prospect of her winning the game causing her daughter to grin widely too. The game didn’t sound that fun, but maybe it will be funner in practice. Even if it wasn’t, Spinel would still play it anyways. She needed to prove that she could be a good kid and follow the rules. She’d wait as long as it took for Momma to come back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: There's going to be a very depressing downward spiral of self hatred and anger in this chapter.  
If you feel that this is something that might set you off, I implore you to turn back now. It won't hurt my feelings!  
Stay safe everybody!

**8 Year Old Steven:**

It was a chilly winter day when Greg and Steven Universe were working together to clear out a storage unit. After Greg had managed to strike it rich with a burger commercial, he decided that it was time to go through all of his past memories before he could enter this new chapter of his life. The task was turning out to be quite the trip down memory lane for Greg. So many memories that had been hastily shoved aside were finally able to see the light of day again.

On the other hand, Steven had been to young to remember any of these objects before they had been locked away, but he was having a lot of fun listening to his dad talk about all of the memories that he couldn’t recall. From golf clubs to a conga drum, he enjoyed hearing each object’s origin story. “Man,” the eight year old wondered aloud, “there’s so much great stuff here. How’d it all end up here in the first place?”

“Well you see. Your mom and I wanted to come here so badly, that as soon as we had had enough money saved up for the amount of gas and food that it would take to drive the van all the way over here we bolted. But when we arrived, we found out that the house we had set our sights on had gotten sold to somebody else. So without a place to put all this stuff we had to leave it in here while we looked for a house. Fortunately Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet let us crash with them until we could figure out a living situation.”

“What’s _ crash _?”

“It’s when somebody lets you stay with them until you can get a place of your own.”

The eight year old thought hard, “So you are _ not _ crashing with Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl anymore right?” Greg wasn’t sure where his kid was going with this, “That's right kiddo. I have the van.”

“But I’m still crashing with Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl?”

Greg chuckled, “Eh not quite. You’re a kid so it doesn’t count. Speaking of which, it’s getting late. I should probably get you back home.” Steven immediately protested. He had been enjoying the time he’d been spending with his dad and didn’t want it to end. Typically, Greg was always working at the car wash, but since he struck it rich, his dad had had a lot more free time on his hands. “One more box?!” Steven tugged at his dad’s arm, putting on his biggest puppy dog eyes, “pleeeease?” Greg inevitably folded, “Alright, but just one more.”

Greg reached out and pulled a box randomly from the cluster that had formed outside the storage unit’s door. “Let’s see. What do we have here?” He pulled out an XXL t-shirt with the logo Mr. Universe on it. “Oh my gosh! This is the shirt that I’d given to your mother on the night that we first met!”

Steven had only been three when his mother had passed away, so he all he had to go off of were the very faint memories he had of her, and the stories his dad told him. He probably wouldn’t have even known what she sounded like if it wasn’t for the tape she had left him. The eight year old smiled at the memory of her kind and calming voice.

It was almost like the thought of his pink haired mother allowed him to spot a small blotch of pink shining from the corner of the box. Steven looked closer and saw that it was a photo of his parents, his dad with a hotdog shoved in his mouth and his mom smiling with amusement. Steven himself couldn’t help but smile with amusement too at the sight. He picked up the photo, but once it was in his hand, he noticed a second rectangular object had been lying underneath it. Curiously, he picked it up too.

It looked like a normal VHS tape until he saw the side. On the side were two words, written in hand writing that looked an awful lot like the calligraphy that had been on the side of his own VHS tape. Steven gasped out in shock dropping the photo. The picture fell to the ground with crash, breaking the frame, but Steven maintained an ironclad grip on the tape. He swung around to face his dad, “I have a sister?!”

**11 Year Old Spinel:**

“I have a brother?!” Spinel gasped, looking down at the newspaper article, her shoulders beginning to quiver.

\----------------------------------------

Spinel had been a bubbly, ball of sunshine while at the orphanage. She was friendly and got along with all of the other kids there. Ms. Zircon turned out to be really friendly and managed to find her some very nice families to stay with while she was playing the game. Some were better than others, but overall Spinel had been perfectly happy. 

This went on for five years. As Spinel got older and began to gain a better understanding of the world, she managed to figure out that Ms. Zircon was her social worker and that these families were foster homes. However, despite being able to figure all of this out, she never ever questioned whether or or not her momma was coming back for her...or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

As much as Spinel wanted to think that she never once had doubted that Momma was coming back, the thought had fluttered into her head. She would always shoo it away and berate herself for even considering such a thing. Spinel tried to remain hopeful, but the idea that Momma was not coming back was starting to make too much sense. Spinel unknowingly chose to remain in denial, continuously telling herself that it couldn’t possibly be true.

Shortly after she had turned eleven, she was shuffled around to another foster home. This family consisted of a father, a mother, and their seven year old daughter.

One day, the father had been working late, and the mother had had to buy more groceries and allowed Spinel to stay home alone while she went off with her daughter to get supplies for dinner.

The overcast day had taken an unexpected turn and the rain began to pound and pour down. The eleven year old had been walking through the living room to go to the kitchen to nab a snack when she spotted something on the coffee table.

It was that day’s newspaper, which wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary if, she hadn’t noticed a small blotch of pink on it. Drawn to the pastel color, she went over and saw that the blotch of pink was from a photo. A photo of...her mother! She was so excited! She could practically feel her heart locket (which still had the old photo of her mother inside of it) glowing against her chest. Spinel snatched up the newspaper and ran upstairs to her room, not even bothering to close the door. She jumped onto the bed, unfolded the paper, and did her best to make sense of the big words written in such a tiny print.

However, as she continued to read, the little girl could feel the photo of her mother in her locket stop glowing and instead begin to weigh heavier and heavier around her neck.

“I have a brother?!” Spinel gasped, looking down at the newspaper article, her shoulders beginning to quiver. Spinel reread the article over and over again, hoping that she had missed something. 

“Many may have heard the catchy jingle from the recent Pepe’s Burgers commercial, but what those who watched it at home may not know is the origin of the song. It’s writer, Greg Universe, had actually written the song with different lyrics and originally entitled it _ Comet _. This is the song he preformed at the concert where he met his wife. Unfortunately she has now passed, but in her honor, he and their son Steven Universe have elected to use the money earned from the commercial to-”

Spinel had to stop reading after that. “I have a brother.” Those four words painfully played on loop in her head, the crushing reality hitting her. Her mother was dead now, but all this time she had been _ happily _ married with a _ son _.

Spinel’s mind flashed to all of those moments where she could feel her heart break little by little every time the mailbox would be empty or the phone won’t ring. She now knew for a fact that while she had been waiting for a letter or a phone call, her mother was off living her life with that other man and that-that child, her brother, her _ replacement _.

Did she do something wrong? Why hadn’t she been good enough for her momma? Spinel could only remember happy times when it was just her and Momma. Where they not so happy? Had Momma secretly hated her all this time? Is that why she left her?

Spinel tore up the newspaper in a blind rage and threw all the little bits out the window where they were carried off by the wind into the storm that was still raging on outside. Spinel immediately regretted her impulse. She had just lost the thing that would tell her where to find her replacement. She reached back out, desperately trying to grab at the pieces, but the sound of thunder forced her to close the window again.

Turning towards the mirror in her room, Spinel caught sight of her reflection and a horrifying realization overtook her. Over time, her once black eyes had lightened to a magenta that made her look so much like the woman in the photo she kept in her locket. Her mother's eyes had gone from pink to black. But Spinel's eyes seemed to have gone from black to pink. She would have laughed at the irony if she wasn’t so distressed.

A long time ago the prospect of looking more like her mother would have delighted Spinel to no end. But now all it made her want to do was claw her eyes out so that she didn’t have to have that reminder of her mother every time she looked in the mirror. However, instead of clawing her eyes out, she settled for digging her nails into her cheeks right beneath her eyes, hoping that the physical pain would distract from the emotional pain. But she clawed harder than she meant to accidentally leaving three lines underneath each of her eyes.

Her frustration only grew. Spinel tore off her locket and threw it across the room. It flew straight through the open door, and took a nasty fall down the stairs. She automatically regretted this impulse as well and raced after it. Spinel might be angry with her momma, but she loved that locket. She had never taken it off, it had been with her through thick and thin.

She cringed each time she heard the sound of a piece being chipped away as it fell. “I’m sorry!” she apologized to it with tears in her eyes once she reached the bottom of the stairs. She bent down and delicately picked it up.

The pain both internal and external were becoming too overwhelming. It was on her trip back upstairs that she began to feel the cuts on her cheeks sting. She knew that she was going to need to treat them soon, or else they would scar, but she could even bring herself to care about that, because once she reentered the room, and made sure to close the door this time, her mind turned to the photo of her mother. She wanted to drop an anvil on it. No she wanted to drop a piano on it. No, she wanted to drop it in a pot of acid and listen to the sizzle.

Then it hit her. The photo was still in the locket, and the locket was now bent out of shape. She wouldn’t be able to open it without risking breaking it, which was a chance she was not about take. She couldn’t believe this. Even after her momma got rid of her, she was unable to return the favor.

Spinel sighed, her emotional exhaustion translating into physical exhaustion. But before she could allow herself to collapse into her bed, she had one more thing to do.

Picking up the locket she could see that the fall had done quite a number on it. It was still heart shaped but the place that she would have strung the chain through had chipped off. Then on the other end, the pointy end of the heart was now bent forward enough that it came in a full circle. 

She went over to her treasure drawer which consisted of all of the various buttons, ribbons, and other shiny objects she had found over the years (God she really had been here for years hadn’t she? How could she not have realized it sooner?), and pulled out a small chain. If was a far cry from the shiny silver one that originally came with it, but it would have to do. The original one was too far beyond repair. She strung the chain through the part that had been bent into a full circle. So now the heart charm was hanging upside down.

Reclasping it around her neck, Spinel lied down in bed, but questions still ran rampant through her mind. “What did she say about me? What did she do without me? Did they play games without me?” Spinel could picture it now. Momma playing fun games with Spinel’s broth- no. She refused to even say the word anymore.

So many emotions bubbled in Spinel but one was far stronger than the others, anger. She many have lost the newspaper but she remembered some of the things that it said, a name, Steven Universe. Her anger only bubbled and grew. “Steven Universe, did you think all this time that I wouldn’t find out about you?”

**8 Year Old Steven:**

No, it turns out it wasn’t true. Steven did not have a sister. 

His dad managed to clarify to him that the VHS tape labeled “For Nora” was just the tape his parents had made for him if he turned out to be a girl. But even after the misunderstanding, the little eight year old couldn’t seem to get the idea out of his head. Although he had been a bit confused, he had been secretly overjoyed to find that tape. 

He would be the first to admit that growing up as an only child definitely had its benefits. He got his own room; his dad’s undivided attention, along with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl’s; he never had to share any of his toys.

However, it was undeniable that there were also disadvantages. There was nobody to exchange secrets with, nobody to stand up to your bullies, nobody to play games with. 

That night when Steven was put to bed, the eight year old couldn’t help but think to himself, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to get better, before they get worse, before they get better again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *kicks down door* I’m back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Disclaimer: Most likely none of this is accurate to how the actual foster care systems works, so pardon the inaccuracies.   
Side note: In the last chapter I said that Blue Zircon was Spinel’s social worker, but now that I am learning the definitions better, she’s something more like a case worker. Although, I’m probably still not defining it correctly. Please just roll with it.

“Spinel, this is getting ridiculous,” Ms. Zircon sighed as she shuffled the papers on her desk. All she was met with was silence from the girl across from her. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the  _ tick tick tick _ of the clock sitting on the wall of the office. The caseworker had been assigned to Spinel ever since she was six. But even after all these years, she still couldn’t seem to figure the magenta eyed girl out.

She knew that something must have happened after Spinel turned eleven, something that led to Spinel’s antisocial behavior. But no amount of counseling could make Spinel divulge what it was. Ms. Zircon and originally feared abuse, but all three of the members of her foster family had had alibis and had seemed just as concerned when they reported coming home to find Spinel asleep in her bed with scars on her cheeks.

There was just no explaining those scars or why Spinel had suddenly decided to make a game out of seeing just how quickly she could make each foster family she was sent to come to Ms. Zircon, begging for Spinel to be reassigned from their house. “Spinel, you need to start behaving better,” Ms. Zircon tired to reason, “These families are opening up their homes to you out of the kindness of their hearts.”

Spinel just rolled her eyes as she slouched in her chair. The mother of that family had had it coming. The lady had started out nice enough (it also helped that she made a mean batch of cookies), but she was also very big on gender roles. She and Spinel would constantly butt heads whenever Spinel would wear men’s clothes or something stupid like that. But the last straw had been when the mother had come home one day with a shopping bag full of cosmetics and cheerfully told Spinel that she had bought her some makeup so that Spinel could cover the scars on her cheeks. This led to a heated argument and ultimately ended with Spinel picking up a pie, that was supposed to win the summer fair the next day, from the kitchen counter and hitting the lady square in the face with it.

Spinel giggled at the memory, but that was the wrong thing to do when sitting in front of the agitated Ms. Zircon. “Spinel, you need to start taking this seriously!” she raised her voice snapping Spinel back into the moment, “With your track record, it’s becoming harder and harder for me to find families willing to take you in!”

Spinel felt a pang of guilt. After she turned eleven she became an absolutely terrible foster kid. She was constantly starting fights with anybody who she could provoke, sneaking money from wallets, and talking back to the parents of the household. This consequently got her sent to a bunch of different counselors, but she refused to tell any of them why she had the scars on her cheeks or divulge what her mother had done. If she couldn’t trust Momma, then why should she trust any of them with such personal information? This led to her getting reassigned to foster home after foster home. She definitely hadn’t made Ms. Zircon’s life any easier by pulling all of these stunts. She was such a burden.

Seeing Spinel’s guilty look, Ms. Zircon took a deep breath. “Spinel, I know that you don’t like being in foster care, but you’ve just turned seventeen. If you can survive for one more year until you turn eighteen, then you’ll be a legal adult and can do whatever you want.” 

Spinel only continued to stare at the ground, Ms. Zircon continued nonetheless, “Now, I actually do have a late birthday present for you,” the caseworker stifled her amusement at how this news made Spinel's eyes snap up to look at her, “I know that you’ve constantly been asking me to see if I can place you in a foster home by the beach. Well, I’ve found one in a place called Ocean Town.” As Spinel processed what Ms. Zircon had just said, she felt a small flicker of excitement light up in her chest, but she quickly squashed it down. She didn’t want to get her hopes up.

After Spinel had found out her momma had gone away to live another life without her, Spinel had tried to research where Greg and Steven Universe might be located. But apparently Mr. Greg wasn’t online too much (wasn’t this guy supposed to be a millionaire?) and Steven didn’t appear to be an avid user of the internet either.

This didn’t stop her from keeping an eye out on the street for the two men that she had seen in that newspaper (not that she knew what she’d even do if she managed to spot one or both of them passing by). Years went by, but one day, after she had turned sixteen, Spinel decided to try searching their names again on a whim.

That’s how she found Steven Universe’s TubeTube channel. Despite painfully sitting through the boy’s reviews of products such as the hot dog duffel bag and reaction videos to crying breakfast friends, Steven never once mentioned where he lived (admittedly a wise thing to do on the internet). 

Fortunately for Spinel, she could see the beach outside his window. She could also tell that he lived on the East coast (the same side of the country Spinel was on), because of where the sun was located in the sky. Since then, Spinel constantly requested to Ms. Zircon that she get put in a foster home near the beach.

Spinel knew that is was hopeless. Even if she did get placed near the beach that didn’t mean that she would be anywhere near Steven. Not only that, but it was also not lost on her how spoiled she must have sounded (she should be grateful to be getting a placed in home at all), but it was all she had to go off of.

“Anyways, you’ll be transferring to Beach City High for your senior year. You would have been going to Ocean Town High, but the place got burned down. So all the students in that town are going to Beach City High while it’s being rebuilt. Do you have any questions?”

Spinel shook her head and smiled. Even after everything that she had pulled, Ms. Zircon was always in her corner, making sure she had a place to crash. “Right then, I think that that’s about everything. We’ll meet again when you arrive at the new home.” Ms. Zircon stood up to get the door for Spinel, but before she could open it, Spinel interrupted her, “Thank you,” the teen said looking down at the ground, a hand on the back of her neck, “For the present I mean. Yuh didn’t have ta do that.” Ms. Zircon smiled at the rare show of gratitude and assured her that it was no trouble at all.

However, as soon as she crossed the threshold, Spinel’s mind immediately went back to business as she mentally prepared herself for keeping an eye out for Greg and Steven Universe while in this new town.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is constantly going to be flipping back and fourth between Spinel and Steven’s perspectives.  
2\. I’ve changed every time someone says "Oh my god" to "Oh my stars," but I’m too lazy to go back and change the other chapters, so just pretend that they have been saying "Oh my stars" the whole time.

“Listen up maggot! We are going to be parachuting behind enemy lines in t-minus one hour! This place is designed to break you. To make you into a mindless soldier, so stay close to me!” Amethyst shouted at Steven as she marched back and fourth in front of him in the living room. “Ma'am, yes ma'am!” the fourteen year old shouted back, standing attention.

“Up until now, you’ve been homeschooled, but now you’re going to be in a place where Pearl can’t take it upon herself to remind you to chew your food. Now it’s gonna be up to you to make your own decisions! So make decisions that make sense! Running fast in gym class: good! Running fast into brick wall: bad! If you can follow that simple rule, you will make it to next summer! Do! You! Understand!” “Ma'am, yes ma'am!”

The two teens exited the house and Steven laughed as Amethyst helpfully supplied some dramatic music with her own voice as she did a forward roll across the porch.

Steven was so excited for his first year of high school. He had been home schooled for a lot of his life but it was time for him to “get socialized” as Amethyst put it. The lavender haired girl was going to be a senior that same year and had taken it upon herself to make sure that Steven knew everything he needed to know in order to survive.

But Steven wasn’t too worried, he highly doubted that there was anything at Beach City High that would get him killed.

\----------------------------------------------------------

Spinel hated everything. She hated this bus which smell like the inside of an old boot. She hated how all of the youths of Ocean Town have been looking at her strangely ever since she had joined them to wait at the bus stop. She hated how the bus would rattle and shake as it drove, making it impossible for her to get in a couple extra minutes of sleep before she was dropped off at her new high school. Speaking of which, she especially hated that this miserable bus was just going to take her to the unhappiest place on Earth. Why was she even doing this again?

_ “If you can survive for one more year until you turn eighteen, then you’ll be a legal adult and can do whatever you want.” _

Oh, that was right. “Just got to make it through one more year,” she tried to reassure herself, “Just one more year of this shit show. Then I’ll be home free.” It was so hard for her to believe that she was in her senior year of high school now. Sometimes, it felt like only yesterday that she was eleven and had found out that she had been abandoned.

Spinel winced at the painful memory and tried to distract herself by looking over her school schedule for the umpteenth time. Turning her it over in her hands, she inspected both sides, despite practically having all of it committed to memory already. Printed on one side of the paper were all of her classes, but the other side is what really interested her.

Printed on the other side were significant dates of the school year. When Thanksgiving break was happening, along with Winter and Spring Break as well. But what caught Spinel’s attention the most was the graduation date, June 2nd, the same date as Spinel’s eighteenth birthday. She almost wanted to laugh at the timing. She was going to be liberated from both high school and fostercare on the same day. 

She was jerked out of her thoughts as she felt the bus come to a halt. Turning her head, she could see the glorified prison outside the filthy window. “Just one more year,” she repeated to herself, “Don’t screw it up.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

Steven was doing well during the first day. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he had a couple of classes with his friend PeeDee. Although he was disappointed to find that he only had P.E. with his best friend Connie. Apparently she was taking a lot of classes above her grade level.

Just before the start of his last period, he met up with Amethyst and they walked to the only class that they had together, theater. Upon walking into the classroom, he was surprised to see his mailman Jamie sitting behind the teacher’s desk.

“Jamie! It’s so good to see you. I thought you had gone off to Kansas.” The former mailman grinned, “Indeed I had, but now I have realized my news calling. I no longer desire to make myself a star, but to lift others up so that they might become stars themselves one day!”

Amethyst smiled slyly and leaned her elbow on the desk, “Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But I’m just wondering it you could pay us back for whenever you were late dropping off our mail in the form of extra credit.” Steven rolled his eyes at Amethyst’s attempt to bargain for an A, and chuckled as Jamie protests.

The boy surveyed the classroom, and his eyes immediately landed on a girl with pink hair pulled into two spiky pigtails. She was looking down at the ground, but he could see that she had three lines on each cheek that looked like they were scars. Then when she met his eyes he was fascinated to see that her eyes were magenta. She looked  _ familiar _ . And-

Wait. Met his eyes. Oh no! She was looking back at him, and the look she was giving him was one of pure hatred.

Steven and the girl played this staring contest for what felt like an eternity, before Steven managed to tear his eyes away from her. What was wrong with him? He knew that it was rude to stare at other people, but there was something about her. He could swear that he’d seen her before, but he has no recollection of them ever crossing paths. 

Steven did his best to not look at the girl while he and Amethyst joined the circle that the students were sitting in. But the whole time he could feel the girl continue to glare at him, her gaze boring into him. What if she was upset that he had been staring at her? He was going to need to apologize.

After sitting down, he spared a glance at her and a jolt of fear ran up his spine as she made a move to stand up. She probably would have started walking towards him, but then Jamie stepped into the center of the circle started the class. She settled herself back down into her chair and Steven breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Greetings young thespians! We are united together in this class by our sacred love of performance. I am Mr. Cordero. I am here to assist you in discovering your voice and bringing it to life on the stage-!” Steven began to tune out after that. He really wanted to pay attention to Jamie’s dramatic monologue, but all he could focus on was staring at the linoleum tiles of the classroom floor, thinking about how he would apologize to the girl he had offended.

As Jamie went on and on with dramatic hand gestures and flowery language, Steven heard Amethyst groan, “Oh no.” “What’s wrong?” he whispered to her. Amethyst gestured with her eyes across the circle, “You see that pink haired girl?” Steven gulped and still didn’t turn his head towards her, “Yeah.” “I’ll give you the rest of the details later, but for now, let’s just say, you should try to avoid her.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

“Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored,” Spinel thought to herself as she sat in her first period calculus class. She leaned forward and tried to go to sleep with her head in her arms. When that didn't work, she groaned and muttered, “Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored,” out loud to herself, but apparently was louder than she meant to be because the girl sitting next to her heard and laughed.

A long time ago, Spinel would have smiled and giggled as well. However, now all she could think was, “How dare she laugh at me?!” Spinel sat up immediately and glared at her desk partner, “What do ya think I’m some kinda joke?” The girl put her hands up in defense, “No that’s not it. I just-” “Shut up!” Although Spinel had said it in a whisper-shout so the teacher wouldn’t hear, the rudeness and venom in her voice effectively silenced the girl and Spinel buried her head in her arms once more.

For the rest of the day, the only thing she allowed herself to pay remotely any attention to was her music. She put her favorite band, Sadie Killer and the Suspects, on shuffle and found that their song G-G-G-Ghost was particularly therapeutic to listen to.

Other than that, she didn’t pay attention to anything else, she tuned out the teachers, her classmates, and all of the students she passed in the halls. She kept it that way for the rest of the day until she got to her final period, theater. Even Spinel had to admit that she was looking forward to it.

She entered and saw that instead of a typical classroom, it was an empty room except for a rack of folding chairs and the teacher’s desk. As more people began to follow in behind her, the teacher instructed everyone to grab a folding chair from the rack, so that they could all sit in a circle. In passing the teacher asked her to take her headphones out. Normally she would have just ignored him, but theater was probably going to be the only thing that was going to make this year bearable and she didn’t want to pick fight a with the person who could potentially kick her out.

Passing wasn’t over yet, so most of the students just sat around and chatted, but Spinel didn’t talk to anyone. Without music to focus on, her mind began to wander; and eventually her thoughts returned back to the topic that they always did, the whereabouts of Steven Universe.

However, recently, these thoughts have been accompanied by doubts, “You’ve been looking for him for six years now. Why are you still even trying?” Spinel gritted her teeth and glared at the floor, “What do you think is going to happen? Do you really think that Steven Universe is just going to suddenly appear out of nowhere?” Oh stars, it was hopeless wasn’t it. Spinel ground her teeth and resisted the urge to pull at her pigtails, “Stupid, stupid, stupid-” She was broken out of her thoughts when she felt a set of eyes on her. She glanced up and...it was  _ him _ . Spinel stared in shock. She must be hallucinating. It couldn’t be.

But it was him. Oh stars it was Steven Universe. She’d recognize that red shirt with the yellow star anywhere. That curly hair, those brown eyes.

The second thing that Spinel realized was that he was gawking at her. “Why is he looking at me like that?...He knows doesn’t he. He knows about our... _ my _ momma. That must be why he’s looking at me.”

What should she do? Should she tackle him and beat him up? Yell at him? She had imagined doing all of these things so many times before, but now that he was right here in front of her, her mind was blanking.

Spinel was internally panicking and freaking out, but externally she must have still looked angry because he noticed her and quickly averted his eyes, looking slightly scared…..good. “He should be scared of me. Oh, Steven Universe, didn’t expect to see me here did ya?”

She wanted to get up and approach him, but unfortunately, the teacher began speaking and she had to sit down again. But the whole time while she waited, she kept her eyes trained on the boy, she couldn’t afford for him to disappear just as suddenly as he reappeared. He was clearly uncomfortable under her gaze and making an effort to not look back at her. She found herself enjoying watching him squirm.

Then he leaned over to whisper something to the person sitting next to him. It was then that she unpleasantly realized he was talking to the same girl from her calculus class.

\----------------------------------------------------------

By the end of his dramatic monologue, Jamie was running out of fancy language so he just switched back to talking normally, “The first thing you will be doing is getting to know your fellow thespians. Each of you will select a partner and you will have until Monday prepare a presentation that will introduce them to the rest of the class. You may create a poem, a movie trailer, a song, a puppet show. You can do it any way you want, but there is one rule. You can’t just stand up and talk about them like a normal presentation. That’s boring. This is a chance for you to show your creativity.”

Steven turned to catch Amethyst’s eye, but then Jamie quickly added on, “And this must be done with somebody that you  _ don’t know _ , or else that defeats the purpose of this getting-to-know-you-project.” He said this while specifically throwing a look at the two of them. Steven and Amethyst sighed in disappointment. 

Jamie set a timer for five minutes and told everybody that they had that long to pick a partner. Now that Amethyst wasn’t an option, Steven didn’t really know who to approach, but that quickly became the least of his worries when he saw the fuchsia eyed girl approaching him once again.

\----------------------------------------------------------

The second that the teacher set the timer and everybody dispersed, Spinel immediately started walking up to the brown haired boy. “I wonder what Momma said to you about me. Did ya have a good laugh? Thought you were never going to have to worry about me didn’t ya?”

Fortunately for her, he didn’t try to run, he just stood there staring at her. She began to close the distance between the two of them. Five feet, four feet, three, two, one-. This was it. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, he interrupted, “I’m sorry.”

“I-uh-huh?” His apology had completely thrown off all of the rage she had built up inside of herself. Steven rubbed the back of his neck, “For staring at you I mean. That was really rude of me.”

Events had taken such a turn that Spinel’s mind blanked. They stood in an awkward silence for a couple of minutes. Steven didn’t dare to break it as he awaited for her response and Spinel’s brain was too busy trying to make sense of why the person she despised most in the world was apologizing to her. The silence was broken by Jamie, “Alright now that we have all picked out our partners, you’ll have the next few days to work on this and we’ll start presentations next week.”

Finally daring to break the silence, Steven laughed, “Oh, I guess us talking to each other made it look like we decided to be partners...soooo....Do you want to do the project with me?” This threw Spinel for another loop. What the hell? Why was he acting like this? Was it a trick?

Well she supposed that any opportunity to gain information on the enemy was one that she should take. So Spinel shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, “Sure whateva.” But on the inside, her heart was beating a mile a minute. It felt like when you’re bracing yourself for a punch, but it never comes and now you just have a bunch of adrenaline in your system that your body doesn’t know what to do with.

He smiled at her. It was so…. _ odd  _ to see such a pleasant facial expression directed at her, “Great! I’m Steven by the way.” He reached out to shake her hand. She took it, “Sp-spinel.”

Why was he pretending to not know about her? What’s his game? 

Spinel was just going to have to bide her time until she figured it out. Fortunately for Spinel, she has had the majority of her life to practice patience. She had waited for Momma to come back, waited to find Steven Universe. A little more couldn’t hurt.

\----------------------------------------------------------

Well it was a start. Spinel hadn’t explicitly accepted his apology, but she had accepted his invitation to be partners. So he could only guess that she had somewhat forgiven him. Hopefully they’d become closer while getting to know each other. Maybe they could become friends once they had completed the project together.

They moved their folding chairs near each other and sat down. Trying to avoid another awkward silence, Steven tried to get the ball rolling, “So, Jamie-I mean Mr. Cordero said that we had to be creative with our presentations. You have have any ideas for how you’ll introduce me to the rest of the class?” Spinel just shrugged. “Well, I have a TubeTube channel. So I was thinking that I could make a video about you. Would that be cool with you?” Spinel just shrugged again. Steven took a deep breath. It looked like he was going to have to be the one to carry most of the conversation.

“In the mean time, why don’t we ask a couple of questions about each other? I’ll go first. You’re a senior, right?”

Spinel nodded.

“What do you want to do after high school?”

“Pass.”

“Have you lived in a state other than Delmarva?”

“Pass.”

“Okay...do you have any siblings?”

She paused for this one. She seemed to think thoughtfully about the question before looking him in the eye, “Pass.”

“Is there anything that you would be okay with telling me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

\----------------------------------------------------------

_ Why? _

_ WHY?! _

That’s what she should be asking him! Why was he asking her these stupid questions? He’d already grown up laughing at her. She winced at the mental image of Momma telling him about her, and him laughing at how much of an idiot she was. Why ask if he already knew about her?

_ “Because he wants to hear you to admit how worthless you are out loud,” _ a voice whispered into her head. Fury coursed through Spinel’s veins.

Spinel gestured for him to let her whisper in his ear. When he cooperated, she leaned in and 

channeled all of her malice and hatred into her words, “Listen here. I don’t gotta tell you nuthin about me. I don’t care about my grades and I sure as hell don’t care about yours. So stop being such a nosy little nuisance.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

Steven gulped, “Oh-h, okay.”

Spinel leaned back and once he felt that she was a comfortable distance away, Steven spoke again, “W-well why don’t I just tell you about myself?” Spinel shrugged and seemed to be docile for the moment.

Steven took a deep breath, like how Garnet had taught him to do, “I live on the edge of Beach City with my friends Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. Pearl is actually an English teacher here and Garnet works as a counselor. My dad works owns the local car wash. I have a cat named Cat-Steven (it’s a long story). I also have a dog named Lion.”

Steven would give Spinel one thing. She was a very good listener. The whole time she kept her eyes trained on him, and nodded occasionally, “I was homeschooled up until now. My favorite snack is Chaaaaps. My favorite TV show is Crying Breakfast Friends. I like reading comics and playing video games. I play the ukulele. I love singing.”

For the rest of class, Steven talked about anything and everything he could think of about himself. Eventually he was interrupted by the final bell indicating that the first day of school had come to an end. “Oh, there’s the bell,” Steven bent down to pick up his backpack, “See you to-,” but by the time he looked up she was gone, “-morrow.”

Suddenly he felt a hand clasp his shoulder. He froze, but untensed when he saw that it was just Amethyst, “Dude! What the heck. I tell you to stay away from her, and you go and sign up to do a project with her! Don’t you remember what I told you? Make decisions that make sense.”

“Well you see…” Steven proceeded to tell Amethyst what had happened while they walked home. Once he was finished, the lavender haired girl sighed, “She had a similar attitude in my calculus class. Is there a way that you can get out of doing the project with her? I don’t want to find your body in the dumpster of the Big Donut because you were giving her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Amethyst! She’s not going to  _ kill _ me!”

His mind flashed back to the way that she had glared at him with pure hatred in her eyes, “...Probably not going to kill me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Amethyst’s back to school lecture is based on the video “Back to School Boot Camp” by Glove and Boots.  
2\. I chose June 2 to be Spinel’s birthday because Sarah Stiles’ is June 20, but I had to cut off the zero, because that was a little too far into the summer.  
3\. I couldn’t find Jamie’s real last name so I just gave him the same last name as his voice actor Eugene Cordero.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things to take note of:  
1\. This chapter (and probably most future chapters) will be constantly flipping between Spinel and Steven perspective’s. Please let me know if it’s hard to keep track of.  
2\. Garnet and Pearl are not a couple in this AU. They just live together because the school doesn’t pay them enough.

The first day of school had happened on a Wednesday. This left Steven to spend Thursday making awkward conversation with Spinel hoping to not make her angry again. But it seemed that she would only give him the time of day if he talked about himself. If he attempted to even gently inquire about her, it would be like talking to a rock.

He tried to keep an eye out for her on the street, maybe figure out something about her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Friday was pretty much a repeat of Thursday. The boy had just finished up telling her about how he used to be obsessed with Cookie Cats when bell rang and Spinel got up to leave.

The project was due Monday and Steven still didn’t really know anything about her (other than that she could be really scary). Steven knew that she would disappear for the weekend and they would still have nothing done and get an F. 

Not only that, but despite how aggressive she acted towards him, Steven still wanted to get to know her, to figure out why she was acting like this. After Monday, he wouldn’t have the excuse to talk to her anymore.

Spinel was putting her folding chair back up onto the rack. A few more seconds and she would be gone. This was his last chance, “Hey wait!” Spinel turned, seemingly annoyed but also slightly confused.

Being underneath her gaze made him suddenly lost his confidence. He looked at the floor, “I was wondering if you’d like to come over to my house and work on the project together over the weekend. Iknowthatyoudon’treallycareaboutitbut-”

“Fine. I can come on Saturday, tomorrow, but I’ve got somethin going on on Sunday,” the way Spinel said it made it feel more like an order, but Steven went along with it. She hadn’t immediately said no, so he’d count it as a win. “Great! Can I have your phone number so I can text you my address?” “I don’t have a phone,” she said slightly quieter. He looked up into her magenta eyes and he could swear that he saw a flicker of shame in them for a second. “Oh umm… how about this,” Steven quickly grabbed a sharpie from his backpack. 

He uncapped it, but paused for a second, “Can you take off one of your gloves?” She wore a pink pair of gloves everyday, they were probably very important to her and he didn’t want to upset her. After a moment of hesitation, she complied, much to his relief. Steven took her calloused hand into his own and quickly scribbled down his address on her hand, and tried not to stare at or comment on a scar that was on the back and front of her hand.

“Does noon work for you?” He smiled hopefully. Spinel just nodded in response and walked away.

“Well that went better than expected.”

**(Time Skip to Saturday)**

Steven was running late!

How do you run late to an event happening at your own house, you might ask? By being forced to chase Onion down after he steals your phone of course.

After Steven managed to wrangle his phone back from Onion, he was horrified to see that it was 12:10. He ran back to his house expecting to see Spinel leaning against the wall or banging on the door angrily. But instead he found her on the sand...doing gymnastics? Steven stayed quiet hoping she would continue not to notice him.

She was balanced on one leg while bringing the other straight above her head, like she was made out of rubber, before miraculously catapulting herself into a backflip and landing on her own two feet.

Then she did something he even less expected. She began bowing to an imaginary audience. He could hear her saying quietly to herself, “Thank you, thank you. You’re all too kind.” Steven couldn’t help but clap along with her imaginary audience, but this alerted Spinel of his presence. She swung her head around, her cheeks becoming flushed. 

“What’re you doing here?” She snapped defensively.

“I-uh-live here?”

Her cheeks flushed a bit further at her blunder, “N-never mind.”

Steven tried to refocus the situation back to the task at hand, so he motioned for her to follow him up the steps, “So you do gymnastics?” he tried to prompt as they walked. “Had to do something while I waited for ya,” she said sharply. “Oh right. Sorry about that. It’s actually kind of a funny stor-,” Steven stopped when he realized that Spinel was no longer following him and had stopped at the top of the stairs. Not only that, she had stopped moving entirely, except for slight shaking. She was frozen in fear.

“Spinel? Spinel are you okay?”

He looked at were her terrified gaze is directed. It was at...Lion. What was even odder than the girl that he was so afraid of being scared of his dog was that Lion was looking back at her. Lion typically ignored everybody, especially when he was sunbathing on the porch. The tibetan mastiff only ever really paid attention to Steven and Connie, but his head had perked up when he saw Spinel.

“Wow wee. That thing sure is big,” Spinel said under her breath, her voice shaking in fear.

“Oh, that’s Lion. You don’t need to worry about him. He won’t bother you,” Steven tried to reassure, but Lion immediately contradicted him by getting up from the spot he had been lying in and approaching Spinel.

Steven ushered Spinel into the house and tried to close the door before Lion could follow, but the big dog shouldered his way past and resumed approaching Spinel.

\---------------------------------------

Spinel had originally liked dogs very much, but her time in foster care had changed that.

During her first few years in the different homes, pets were a small blessing for Spinel. She found that she was actually pretty good with animals, and unlike some of her foster siblings, the pets never considered themselves too old or mature to play games.

But after that horrible day when she found that newspaper article, Spinel’s luck with animals turned sour as well. The next home she was put in had a rottweiler that **hated** her, always barking and growling whenever she passed by. The foster mother was no help and told Spinel that her baby wouldn’t hurt a fly. Spinel tried to convince herself that it was true, but the rottweiler took it upon himself to prove his momma wrong. Spinel didn’t know if it was something she did or if the dog was just having a bad day, but one day he suddenly began to chance her throughout the house.

Spinel could still remember running with the dog only a few steps behind her. It managed to get her hand, leaving a scar on the front and back of it, but she managed to snatch her hand away before he could properly chomp down. Spinel hid herself in the hall closet while she did her best to hold the door as the dog growled and pushed against it. 

Eventually, the rottweiler got bored and went away, but Spinel stayed in there too terrified to come out for hours. The adults of the family would later apologize to her, while Spinel wrapped her own hand (not trusting them to do it). The foster mother explained that she had thought the pink haired girl was just playing a game with her baby. Even since then, Spinel had never been fond of dogs, especially the big ones.

Now, here in Steven’s house, standing in front of her was the biggest dog she had ever seen. It was about the size of a full grown adult, and was walking towards her. Its light auburn fur looked almost pink and shined in the sunlight, the fur around its neck resembled a mane. It probably would have looked majestic if she hadn’t been so terrified.

In her attempts to back away she miscalculated her footing and fell onto her butt. Now the dog was towering over her. He leaned in really close and Spinel braced herself. But the dog merely sniffed Spinel’s face for a few seconds before licking and nuzzling her.

Spinel expression must have been priceless because she could see Steven resisting the urge to laugh as he finally managed to pull Lion off of her. “Bad Lion! You’re going into time out,” Steven scolded and managed to shoo Lion out the door. He turned back to Spinel with an apologetic look on his face. “I’m really sorry about that. Typically Lion just ignores everybody,” he laughed, “I guess that means you’re special.” He then guided Spinel to the bathroom, “Sorry about his shedding too. I have a lint roller you can use.”

As Spinel began to remove all of the fur the beast had rubbed onto her clothing while he was nuzzling her, she tried to convince herself that Steven hadn’t seen the terror on her face when she had seen Lion. He probably had, but she could pretend.

After the pink-haired girl exited the bathroom. She finally managed to get a good look at the house.

There was a kitchen area to her left. Behind her were five doors that led to who know where. To her right was a living room area and above that was a loft. The loft she recognized to be Steven’s room from his TubeTube videos. Finally, in front of her was the front door and above it was...a painting of her momma.

Steven noticed her eyeing the portrait, “Yeah, that’s my mom. She passed away when I was three.” Not taking her eyes off of the portrait she said, “It’s...a nice paintin’.” 

Steven smiled and led her up the stairs to his loft, but all she could focus on was the photo trapped in her locket laughing at and mocking her with the painting on the wall.

\---------------------------------------------

Steven noticed that Spinel had gone quiet again. Once more there was an awkward silence before Steven tried to break it again, “Well why don’t we just get started. ‘We're never going to get the present again. So let's do something with it!’”

This seemed to have gotten Spinel’s attention, and she was giving him a look that he couldn’t quite place, “Oh that’s a quote from a book series I like. It’s called The No Home Boys. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s from my favorite book of the series, On the Run. It’s what Finn Huckleberry said to Sawyer Tom while they were moving across the country side.”

Spinel muttered, “We’ll never get now again. So we gotta make the most of it.”

“What?”

She looked up to meet his eyes, “You misquoted it. It’s actually, ‘We’ll never get now again. So we gotta make the most of it,’” Spinel got a small gleam of mischief in her eyes, “And just for the record, On The Run should not be your favorite. Risky Rapids is far superior.”

“Risky Rapids! That one’s plot made no sense. The twist villain was out of no where!” “Did not!” Spinel snarked, “You just can’t appreciate the twists and turns of the story. Quite frankly, On The Run’s ending was so predictable, I managed to figure it out by page 90.” Steven grinned despite the fact that they were supposed to be arguing, “No it wasn't! I had to skip ahead because I was in so much suspense!”

Spinel laughed. It was a weird feeling. How long had it been since she’d genuinely laughed without it beginning pained or sarcastic?

Steven being Steven tried to find some common ground, “In any case. I think we can both agree that Case of the Pilfered Pegasus was a mistake.” Spinel cringed at the memory of that horrid graphic novel adaptation. “Most definitely,” she nodded in agreement.

A comfortable silence fell over them for a few seconds before Steven dared to speak, “So...you like The No Home Boys?”

She scoffed, and he was afraid for a moment that she might get defensive again and tell him to back off, but instead she surprised him, “Do I like The No Home Boys? Do I like The No Home Boys?! It was only half of my entire childhood! I pretty much have alla em’ memorized.”

As they continued to bicker over which book was better, Steven was quickly realizing that despite knowing her for about four days now, he hadn’t heard her speak that often. Her accent was so interesting he found himself wanting to hear her talk more.

“-and why you gotta love Risky Rapids. Ya never know what’s gonna to happen next.”

Steven suddenly got an idea, “Hey, I don’t know if you’ll be able to predict the plot of this book as well, but if you like books with lots of adventure. I think you might like this series that my friend Connie introduced me to.” He went over to his bookshelf and grabbed a book with a purple cover along with a girl and an falcon on it. “The series is called The Spirit Morph Saga. It’s about this girl named Lisa who finds out that she’s a witch and she has this spirit animal called a familiar. They go on an adventure to find her dad who was kidnapped by a mysterious one-eyed man.”

Spinel looked at the book with interest. 

“I can lend the first book to you if you’d like.”

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel was about to take it and say yes, but stopped herself, “What am I doing?!” She retracted her hand and tried to go back into her shell. She shrugged, “Nah. I’m good.”

“Oh, okay” Steven was clearly trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. It almost made Spinel feel _ guilty _. Why was she feeling guilty?!

She didn’t even want to have to tackle that question, so instead Spinel looked out the window and fiddled absentmindedly with her locket.

\--------------------------------------------

Steven noticed her toying with her necklace. Now that he was thinking about it, he had never once seem her without that necklace on. It was shiny, pink, and matched her eyes and hair. 

“I like your necklace.”

Spinel seemed confused before realizing what he meant. She scoffed, “What? This old thing?”

Admittedly, the chain was beat up and looked like it could fall off at any moment. The charm was also clearly not meant to be in the shape that it was and resembled an upside down heart more than anything else, but the way that the gem stone shined in the sunlight was mesmerizing.

“Yeah, it’s pretty. Where’d you get it from?”

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel smiled bitter sweetly. While she was still suspicious, she was starting to think that Steven really didn’t know about her. Plus, even if he did, she would only be telling him what he already knew, so she supposed she could indulge him for the time being.

“I got it from my grandmothers,” she smiled sadly as she ran her thumb across the stone. “Grandmothers?” Steven prompted. “Yeah. Gran, Grandma, and Grandmother. They’d given it to me as a early birthday present.”

_ And I promised them that I would take good care of it. Can’t even keep my own promises. _

“I used to live with them in Empire City. Having three grandmas was the best. I used to brag to all of the other elementary schoolers that I got to have triple the cookies,” she chuckled at the memory.

Steven laughed, “Garnet was actually raised by two moms and they like to treat me like their grandson. I’ll have to make a joke about getting double the cookies thing next time I visit them.”

“Hey dat’s plagiarism!” Spinel lightly protested, but it was clear that she didn’t mind him reusing her material. Steven chuckled, “So anyway, you said that they live in Empire City. Do still get to visit them sometimes even though you’re down here?”

“Nah. I haven't seen them since I was six. I don’t really remember a lot,” Spinel’s smile somehow turned even more bitter sweet as she reminisced, “But if ya gotta know, they were actually the ones who signed me up for gymnastics. At least one of them would always be at one of my competitions.” Then her smile vanished, “I had to drop out when I was six but I never really stopped...as you probably could tell from my little routine on the beach.”

“Yeah. You’re really good at it. I wish I could do some of those cool flips!”

Spinel tried to hide the tint of pink in her cheeks at the compliment.

\--------------------------------------------

“Don’t ask her,” his brain told him. Steven knew that he it was none of his business. “She’s going to get mad at you.” But his curiosity got the better of him, “Can I ask...why did you have to drop out?”

Spinel looked away and stared at the floor.

Steven panicked and was about to reassure her that she doesn’t have to answer but she beat him to the punch.

\--------------------------------------------

Please don’t just let him be messing with me!

Why am I even telling him this?

Why is he so easy to talk to?

Before Spinel could figure out why she found herself opening up to him, she spoke, “I was put in foster care.”

Why was she telling him this! If he does know, then he’s just watching her torture herself. If he doesn’t then she’s dumping a bunch of personal information on a stranger! What was wrong with her?!

Nevertheless it was out there now. Spinel glared at the floor, bracing herself for Steven’s response.

She was shocked to hear the next words that came out of his mouth, “Hey, hey. No judgement here. My friend Amethyst is actually also in foster care.” Spinel tilted her head, silently asking for more information. Steven complied, “She’s the girl that you always see me enter theater class together with. Amethyst says that you two actually have calculus together.” “Yeah. I know her,” Spinel muttered, still not really on good terms with the lavender haired girl. “Anyways, when she was eight she was just supposed to be fostered by Pearl and Garnet for a little while, but the three of them got attached and she’s been here ever since.”

“Is she your..._ sister _?” Spinel asked. “Kinda,” Steven replied, “She’s sometimes more like Pearl and Garnet's little sister. She’s always been like a big sister to me, but she can also feel like a third mom sometimes.”

\--------------------------------------------

Before Spinel could reply, she was interrupted by a chime from Steven’s phone. It was a text from Pearl saying that the school’s meeting had been shorter than expected and that she and Garnet would be home in about twenty minutes.

“Oh yeah, I was wondering where everybody was,” Spinel smiled weakly when he told her what the text said. “Yeah, Amethyst is over at her friend Vidalia's house right now,” Steven supplied but the look of anxiety on her face was not lost on him.

Steven realized that considering the heart to heart he and Spinel had just had, and her antisocial behavior, she might not be up for interacting with more people. Not only that, but it might not be the best idea to have his friends meet Spinel all at once, especially considering how...excited they can be whenever he makes a new friend.

“Do you just want to go home now?” he offered. Spinel to looked at him surprised, “But what about the project?”

Oh right. He’d gotten so distracted with everything else it had slipped his mind. “Umm, could I take a couple photos of you? And maybe take a video of you doing some of those crazy flips? I can just take those and provide some narration for the video.” “Okay,” Spinel complied.

After doing some flips Spinel seemed to feel better as well. 

Steven smiled as she left and waved her off.

\--------------------------------------------

**(Time Skip to Monday in Theater Class)**

The class had arranged the folding chairs into an audience, allowing those who performed to get up in front or (like in Steven’s case) those who made a video to allow their creation to be projected and played on the blank wall.

Steven’s TubeTube video was a hit. The class oohed and aahed at the flips Spinel did on the beach. Also, much to Spinel’s relief, the only information, other than that she did gymnastics, mentioned was that she used to live in Empire City and that she liked The No Home Boys. He included nothing about her grandmas or her being in foster care.

Then it is Spinel’s turn to present. Steven waited for her to inform Jamie that she didn’t do anything, but instead Spinel walked up to the front of the class, cleared her throat and did the last thing Steven expected her to do. She sang.

Ohh, he's a ukulele player with TubeTube fame,

he adopted a cat and gave it his name,

Originally home schooled was the guy,

But now he's at your local Beach City High!

Steven!

He loves to dance and sing,

Steven!

He likes song writing,

Steven!

His dad works the car wash,

Steveeeeennnn!

He’s also got a dog named Lion.

The whole class laughed at her parody of the iconic Cookie Cat commercial. Steven might have been a bit embarrassed but he couldn’t stop grinning. Not only at the honor of having the song he loved so dearly be changed to be made about him, but also at the sight of Spinel up the stage. She looked so at home up there. Smiling, having a good time. It reminded him of how some people would tell him that he looked on stage.

After Spinel was done, the rest of the class applauded, and she sat back down next to Steven. As the next pair began setting up, he turned to her with stars in his eyes, “That was amazing! Why didn’t you tell me you could sing! I would have loved to have included that in the video!” Spinel seemed uncomfortable from the compliments, but smiled at his praise, “I gotta have some secrets.”

Steven continued to smile. Even though Spinel was still a bit of a mystery, he really felt like he had figured her out. Hopefully she considered them to be friends now too.

Eventually the class ended and Spinel left along with the rest of the class. Unfortunately for Steven, he had accidentally got himself caught in a conversation with Jamie about the upcoming fall play that he couldn’t seem to get out of. He cursed Amethyst as he watched her moonwalk out the door, clearly happy to not be in his position.

As Jamie talked about how excited he was to choose the play, he was interrupted by a chime from his phone. The drama teacher’s face blanched as he read the screen. “I’m sorry Steven. I know you’d love to continue to talk about the fall production with me, but there’s a teacher’s meeting that I need to be at right now!” Jamie blethered as he scrambled out the door.

Steven counted his blessings before going over to pick up his backpack, but paused when he spotted something small, shiny, and pink on the ground. It was Spinel’s necklace charm. He knew that the chain had looked really old. It must have broken at one point and Spinel hadn’t noticed when it fell off.

Steven would have given it to Jamie to hold onto, but now Jamie was gone. He wanted to leave it on Jamie’s desk, but the necklace was so beat up that a janitor might mistake it for trash and throw it away. It was only when you looked closer at the necklace that its value becomes apparent, and an underpaid custodian at Beach City High would have no reason to inspect the necklace.

The boy wished he could text Spinel and let her know that he had it, but she didn’t have a phone. So until he could give it to her, he’d better keep it with him. Steven picked the necklace up, and was about to put it in his backpack for safekeeping, when suddenly Spinel suddenly burst through the door, “Has anybody seen my locket?!!!” she yelled hysterically.

Steven normally would have remained calm and said that he had found it, but given how aggressive she was being, it made him nervous and afraid to speak. Causing him to get an expression on his face that almost looked guilty.

That’s why when Spinel’s magenta eyes finished surveying the empty classroom before settling on him with the charm in hand, he looked like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Like he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel had been waiting in line to get on the bus when she began to have an existential crisis.

He had been nice to her. Why? She had only been rude and snarky to him.

Spinel had hoped that by getting closer to Steven, she could figure out the best way to get her revenge, but if he never knew about her, should she even bother?

Spinel shuttered. Her whole life had been solely dedicated to this one purpose ever since she was eleven. What was she supposed to do now? Nobody cared about her. She had no direction in life. Without this purpose, she might as well just _ disappear _.

No! Of course she should still take revenge on him. If she didn’t get to have a happy life even though she didn’t do anything wrong, then neither should he!

“Besides,” a little voice told her, “he still could be faking it and pretending to not know about you. He could just be waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”

This was beginning to become too much for Spinel. She instinctively reached to fiddle with her locket, but didn’t feel anything. Spinel started grasping around her chest and neck.

Where is it?! Where Is It?! WHERE IS IT?!

She must have dropped it somewhere! Immediately, Spinel barreled out of crowded line behind her, causing a lot of disturbance, and people telling her to watch it, but she couldn’t care less. She began frantically retracing her steps, desperately scanning the ground.

Nononononono! Where could it be?!

Somebody could step on it and smash it to a thousand bits. Somebody could throw it away. Somebody could pick it up and keep it for themselves. Her teeth grit at all of those painful possibilities.

After she didn’t see anything on the pavement outside the school, she ran back into the building. Despair started to fill her at she began to loose hope when she didn’t see it in the floor of the hallway.

The girl began to sprint to Mr. Cordero’s class. She knew that she had had it in theater while she was giving her performance. It was her last hope.

Spinel was so stressed and borderline hyperventilating at the threat of loosing her most precious possession. Tears were forming in her eyes when she threw open the door to the theater classroom and yelled, “Has anybody seen my locket?!” 

But she didn’t need to yell, the class only had one person in it. It was _ Steven _ and he had her locket. He looked like he had just been about to put it into his backpack and the guilty look on his face said it all.

Spinel’s overwhelming anxiety suddenly transformed into rage, “Why do you have that?”

Oh stars, she had been right all along! Of course he knew that they were related, and now that he knew that that locket was precious to her, he was stealing it to make her was miserable. Well the jokes on him!

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel didn’t even give Steven the chance to respond to her question before she flew forward and socked him right in the face.

He recalled her yelling something at him, but he couldn’t even begin to guess what she was screaming because everything was fading to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for over 2,000 hits!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know how the school system works, so Spinel’s punishment probably isn't accurate.

“Spinel, what happened?”

The girl ignored the principal and remained silent. The only sound in the office was the ticking of the clock. It reminded her of when she had been in Ms. Zircon’s office, but she highly doubted that this meeting would end as well as the other one had.

Spinel cringed at the thought of getting expelled, having to see that disappointed look on her social worker’s face when she has to come and take Spinel away to a new school. “I was supposed to be better,” she thought to herself, “I was supposed to hang in there and not loose control.”

“Spinel?”

“Don’t bother speaking. You can’t trust him. You can’t trust anybody,” a little voice told her. Spinel obeyed it and stared at the ground. She almost brought her hand up so that she could run her thumb over her locket, but stopped herself. Her locket wasn’t around her neck anymore. She could feel it practically burning a hole in the pocket of her jeans. She resisted the urge to take it out.

Thinking about her locket caused her mind to once again turn to the reason she had had to stuff the charm into her pocket before that nosy teacher had come to investigate: Steven Universe.

She had been stupid and trusting, but she wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

“He knew the whole time didn’t he? Does he think this is a game? Well unfortunately for him, games are my specialty.”

\--------------------------------------------

When Steven first opened his eyes, the first thing that he wanted to do was close them again. The bright white of the nurse’s office only helped to worsen the aching in his head. Wait a minute, nurse’s office? Oh...that’s right.

A feeling that he didn’t have name for grew in Steven as the events that had taken place before he was knocked unconscious flashed through his head at lightning speed.

After his eyes adjusted and Steven just stared at the blank ceiling. It had all happened so quickly. The image of Spinel’s face stuck in his mind. She looked so angry and yet so afraid. 

Steven sat up with a groan, a yell of joy made him aware of a presence sitting in a chair next to the cot. “Steven!” Pearl cried, rushing forward to hug him, “Oh thank goodness you’re awake. I was so worried!” Steven smiled and reassured Pearl that he was fine. Once Pearl settled down, he dared to ask, “What happened?” even though he was pretty sure he already had a good idea.

Pearl frowned solemnly, “You were knocked unconscious by one of your classmates. A teacher heard the noise, rushed in, and found her standing over you. You were taken here and she was escorted to the principal’s office to explain herself. I had to stay in the teacher’s meeting and maintain order. But as soon as I could get out of it, I raced over here.”

Steven was almost glad that Pearl hadn’t able to see Spinel. He didn’t need one of his adoptive mothers getting fired for fighting a student. Steven tried to change the subject, “How long was I out?” “A few minutes,” Pearl replied. “That’s good,” he smiled, “Not too long.” “Far too long for me,” Pearl huffed, clearly still worried about Steven.

Before Steven could reply, the nurse came back in. “Oh good, you’re awake,” she said with a kind smile. After some persuading, the nurse managed to shoo Pearl out of the office, reassuring the English teacher that the boy would be fine. Pearl begrudgingly agreed to go back to her classroom, and while Steven loved Pearl, he was grateful for the quiet.

The nurse checked Steven over and assured him that he didn’t have a concussion, but he was probably going to have one heck of a shiner. She gave him a pack of ice and told him that his dad had been called and was on his way, and that Steven should go to the principal’s office so that they can sort this whole mess out and discuss further action.

Steven did as he was told. Holding the ice pack to his left eye, he began his journey to the principal’s office. As he walked through the hall, Steven couldn’t help but replay everything that had transpired before he was knocked unconscious. Not just the stuff that had happened that day, but also the events that had taken place during the weekend and even before that.

He felt mournful. Sure he and Spinel had gotten off to a bumpy start, but he really thought they had become friends. But now he wasn’t really sure if they were friends, enemies, or something else entirely. It had all happened so fast, he never got the chance to figure out Spinel’s side of the story.

“I guess there only one way to change that,” he thought to himself as he stood outside the door of his destination. He knocked first and once granted entry, he opened the door and immediately wanted to close it and leave.

There wasn’t anything particularly bad happening in the room. The principal was sitting behind his desk and Spinel was sitting across from him. Her back was to Steven, but he could feel Spinel’s anger from across the room, it was practically palpable.

Despite what he might have wished, Steven knew he had no choice but to get closer. “Steven,” the principal greeted as the boy sat down in the chair to the left of his assailant, “I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.” Steven thanked the principal and assured him that he was fine, despite holding a bag of ice to his eye.

“Maybe you can help to enlighten me on the situation, Steven. I’ve been trying to get Spinel to tell her side of the story, but it appears that she doesn’t want to speak right now.”

Steven tried not to look at the girl to his right, before complying. He told the principal about how he was the last one to leave class, how he had spotted Spinel’s necklace and was about to put it into his backpack for safekeeping so that he could give it to her tomorrow before Spinel burst in. “I guess she must have thought that I was stealing it. And that’s why she punched me. It seems like it’s very important to her.”

“I see,” the principal nodded, “and do you know where the necklace is now?” 

“No.”

At this, both sets of eyes turned to the girl whose magenta eyes just continued to stare down at the floor. The room was tense, but it didn’t last long when it was broken by a knock at the door. “Come in,” called the principal.

The door open and Steven wasn’t sure if he was relived or disappointed. His dad had arrived.

\--------------------------------------------

**Greg’s POV:**

Steven had always been such a peaceful kid. He had a knack for befriending his bullies in a matter of minutes. So you can imagine Greg’s surprise when he got a phone call saying that his son had gotten into a fight.

He rushed over to the school and after he sat down, the principal clarified that there was a misunderstanding and that Steven hadn’t done anything wrong. The principal then recounted the whole situation for him.

Greg turned to look at the student who had hurt his son. She looked so familiar, and then something clicked.

_ That little girl. That day at the beach. _

He wasn’t sure how or why he was able to tell that it was her, but he just knew.

“What happened to her?” he wondered. He could still remember her being so smiley and bubbly. He also remembered how that night Steven had been a little fussy when being put to bed, but Greg took a page from that little girl’s book and began to make funny faces at the child. It worked and Steven’s giggling managed to wear him out and settle him down. There were still a couple of quite giggles coming out of Greg. Steven’s laughter really was contagious, much like that girl’s.

Greg remembered thinking about how he wouldn’t be having this happy moment if he hadn’t run into the bubbly kid. He had decided then and there that he wouldn’t mind seeing that little girl again. Now here she was, sitting in the principal’s office for giving his son a black eye. The same boy that she had made laugh and giggle as a toddler.

Chances were she probably didn’t remember him and given the death glare she was giving to the floor, she probably wouldn't appreciate the icebreaker: Oh hey. I know you just gave my son a black eye, but do you remember that one time when you were little and walked up to me and my son at the beach before you were escorted away by the police?

Greg was brought back into the moment by the principal’s voice, “Do you plan to seek legal compensation Mr. Universe?” The father looked at his son. Despite the black eye, his son appeared to be no worse for wear, and it’s not like Greg needed the money. “Nah, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” he shrugged. Greg paid no mind to how the principal seemed to internally sigh with relief. “In that case, why don’t you take Steven home and take tomorrow off?” Greg smiled and thanked the principal before leaving with his son.

“How are you holding up?” he asked once they were in the hall. “Good enough,” Steven shrugged, but didn’t meet his dad’s eyes.

His son seemed sad, but Greg could tell that now was not the time to pry. He’d leave it alone for now, but he knew he would inevitably have to talk with Steven about that girl.

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel couldn’t help but feel relieved after Steven and his dad exited the office. The older Universe had been looking at her funny and she had been doing her best to not squirm under his gaze. What was his problem?

“Probably that you punched his kid in the face,” an unhelpful voice reminded her. She shook it away. She had other things to focus on, specifically the fact that she was trapped here with the principal now.

“Spinel. Unless you have anything to add, I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend you for the rest of the week,” the principal informed her, “I will also have to call you foster family and inform your social worker about this incident.” Spinel did her best to hide the way her shoulders cringed at this. “Additionally, if something like this happens again. There will be a greater punishment and possible expulsion.”

Spinel left the principal’s office that day not quite knowing why she felt bad. She had gotten her locket back, she had socked Steven right in the face (something that she’d wanted to do since she was eleven), and she managed to not get expelled. So why did she feel bad? She hadn’t done anything wrong. It was all  _ him _ , she wouldn’t be falling for the lies that he had told the principal.

Before Spinel could think about it any further, she caught sight of a wall clock in the hallway telling her that she only had five minutes to catch the late bus. Spinel had to sprint but her luck prevailed for once, and she managed to catch the bus. 

The ride to Ocean Town was a long one, which gave dread plenty of time to form in Spinel’s stomach. By the time she got back, her foster mother would have already received a phone call saying what Spinel had done. 

Sure enough she found her foster mother sitting at the kitchen table, clearly expecting her. Spinel should have been nervous, but all she could think was, “How long has she been posing in that chair waiting for me?”

“Spinel.”

Here we go.

“I got a call from your school. They say you got into a fight.” “Yeah,” she muttered. “Spinel. We’ve talked about this. You need to repress these violent urges and learn to forget about the past.” Spinel internally groaned, hoping that this lecture would be shorter than they usually were. “I want you to go to your room and reread the second chapter of my book. That one is specifically about avoiding violence. It will help to guide you.”

Spinel grit her teeth. Her foster mom was a self proclaimed “inspirational author” and had written a book on being peaceful and happy all the time. When the woman had first heard that Spinel was a troubled teen, she made it her mission to “cure” her. She made the girl read that stupid book during the summer and making Spinel reread it was her solution anytime Spinel got angry.

“In the meantime I will hold onto those headphones of yours. I’m worried that those negative songs you listen to, may be encouraging this behavior.” Spinel hated the idea of handing over her headphones. They were her second most precious possession, just under her locket. Music helped to make life bearable. But she was so drained from what had happened at school and she didn’t want to get into two fights in one day. She begrudgingly handed them over and went to her room.

When she got there, she didn’t bother reading that stupid book. Instead she went over to the dresser, where all of her possessions were stuffed into a singular drawer. She took off her jacket and in the middle of stuffing it in with the rest of her clothes, her hand hit something hard.

She pulled out the object, and a bittersweet smiled spread on her face when she saw what it was. It was one of the DVDs of the black and white cartoons she and Gran had liked to watch. 

“What would she think if she could see me now? If any of the three of them could see me now?”

Spinel didn’t remember a lot about her grandmothers. Certainly not enough to try to track them down, but what she did remember was happy. She had been so happy. Especially when it came to those cartoons. 

She remembered how she had loved them so much to the point where she tried to model herself after the main character, Mickey Mouse. She taught herself to talk like him, using words like “swell;” she always wore her hair in two buns, to mimic his ears; and above all, she tried to have Mickey’s upbeat attitude and endless optimism.

Optimism. Spinel scoffed at the word. After she was put into foster care, Spinel had found out the hard way that life wasn’t a cartoon short, and positivity got you nothing. 

Once upon a time, she had dreamed of being the hero in one of the cartoons that was contained in the disk. The one who got to rescue the damsel and save the day through wacky hijinks, and at the end, the screen would iris out as her very own Minnie peppered her face with kisses. But life isn’t like that. She wasn’t Mickey, she wasn’t the hero. How could she save the day if she couldn’t even save herself?

**(Time skip to next Monday)**

The school loomed unwelcomingly as she approached on her first day back. It didn’t look happy to see her and the feeling was mutual. She had been tempted to just fake being sick, but if she had to listen to another one of her foster mother’s lectures she was going to loose it.

Spinel walked into Calculus, and she and Amethyst glared at each other. The lavender haired girl had clearly heard what she did to Steven, and there was no doubt she would be holding a grudge.

Unfortunately for her classmate, Spinel didn’t care. So she just ignored the other girl’s scowl and focused on the object in the pocket of her hoodie. Without her music to focus on, Spinel only had her locket to distract her. She had yet to find a new chain, so she wore a hoodie and stuck the charm into its pocket. That way she could run her fingers over it and it would only look like she had her hands stuffed into her pockets.

Spinel had only just settled down in her chair when the overhead speaker sounded, calling her to the principal’s office. “What?! I haven’t even done anything yet!” Spinel thought to herself, very annoyed. She obeyed the speaker, nonetheless, and began to make her journey to the office. 

As she walked though the halls her anxiety began to grow. “Why are they calling me over. What do they want? What if they changed their minds and decided to expel me?” She reached the office far too soon.

“Spinel. It’s good to see you. Please take a seat,” the principal told her as she entered. Spinel obeyed, but all that was going through her head was, “Please don’t expel me. Please don’t expel me. Please don’t expel me.”

“The school faculty and I talked during your suspension-”

Please don’t expel me. Please don’t expel me.

“-and it was decided that we need to take further action.”

I’m getting expelled.

“That’s why we will be sending you-”

She braced herself.

“-to counseling.”

Spinel froze. “I understand that you have a free third period. So starting today, it will be mandatory for you to go to your designated counselor during that time until deemed otherwise.” “B-but I’ve got homework to do!” she protested. She actually just slept in the library through third period, but he didn’t need to know that. “Then you can discuss time and workload management with your counselor later today,” the principal sighed, clearly not in the mood to argue, “Here’s the room number. Have a nice day.”

Spinel nodded dumbly and headed back to class. During her walk she recounted her two takeaways from the meeting. The good news was that she wasn’t getting expelled. The bad news was that she had to go see  _ a counselor _ .

Her teeth grit at the very thought of it. Counseling had been the bane of her existence ever since Ms. Zircon began to send her to it after she got the scars on her cheeks. She just ignored all of them and their nosy questions until Ms. Zircon gave in and stopped making her go. That’s what she was planning to do here too.

Normally she would have just ignored the order entirely, but Spinel knew that she was walking on thin ice. Heck, if she wasn’t at risk of being expelled, she would have ditched and never shown up to this glorified poison in the first place.

First and second period passed and before she knew it, Spinel was walking over to the room number the principal had given her. Somehow, she managed to convinced herself to knock. The girl heard a muffled “Come in.” and opened the door to find a woman sitting behind a desk. She had dark skin, a square afro, and wore big sunglasses despite being indoors.

“You must be Ms. Magma,” she said warily. The lady gave her a kind smile that Spinel immediately detested.

“Please, call me Garnet.”


	7. Chapter 7

When Garnet Magma had first been asked to counsel Spinel, she was hesitant.

She questioned the principal, pointing out how this would be a conflict of interest, since she lived with the kid who Spinel assaulted.

But the principal explained that Garnet was known for having a way with kids, and making people open up. He knew that Spinel was a troubled child and didn’t want to entrust anybody else with this delicate task. So he was willing to set aside the conflict of interest if Garnet was as well.

Garnet also contacted B. Zircon, Spinel’s social worker, and she warned Garnet that she had tried to send Spinel to counseling before and the girl had been very uncooperative. But Garnet still wanted to try, so she agreed to take on Spinel.

After the girl had entered the room, she remained standing. Garnet wanted to tell her to take a seat, but something told her, that she would have sat down already if she had felt comfortable enough.

Garnet cleared her throat. She had dealt with many difficult youths before, and had found that it was always better to say something first, to try to get the ball rolling in the right direction. 

“Hello Spinel. It’s nice to meet you.” The girl rolled her eyes. “Seeing as how we’ll be seeing more of each other throughout the year, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

This got more of a reaction out of the pig-tailed girl. She stayed silent, but now she was glaring at her counselor instead of the floor. It’s not like Garnet expected something different, so she shrugged and changed the subject, “I’ll take that as a no...Okay, what do _ you _ like to do instead?”

Spinel’s facade was broken for a moment as she blinked in surprise before quickly resuming her cold demeanor. “Let’s play a game,” she proposed while still glaring. Garnet was intrigued, “Oh? What type of game?” “It’s called Who Can Shut Up The Longest,” Spinel sneered.

“Oh yes. I think I’ve heard of that one,” Garnet replied pleasantly, not even phased by the new name Spinel had given the Silent Game. But the mention of games got the gears in Garnet’s head turning, “Why don’t we play a different game instead?”

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel cocked her head to the side in confusion. What was this lady’s deal? She wanted to just ignore her, but the counselor had an air about her. It was like whenever she spoke, Spinel felt the need to answer, even if it was just a snarky comment.

“What kind?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to say different things that I think are true about you. Every time I say something true, you take a step forward. Every time I say something false about you, you take a step backwards. If you make it to the chair, you sit down. If you back up enough to the door, you can go for the rest of the period.”

Of course, Spinel didn’t like the idea of willingly telling this woman anything about her, but if it meant she could get out of here sooner rather than later, she’d take it.

Spinel looked back at the door and in front of her where the chair was. There was roughly an equal amount of distance between her and the two items. It was anyone’s game.

“Alright,” she looked up at Garnet, “Tell me about myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sorry for the short chapter. Things are really hectic in my life right now, but I’ll try to get the next chapter posted as soon as I can.  
2\. This scene if based off of The Sixth Sense.  
3\. Thanks for over 3,000 hits!


	8. Chapter 8

“You don’t want to be here.”

Spinel rolled her eyes and muttered, “Low hanging fruit,” before taking a step forward.

“You don’t think I’m going to help you.”

She took another step forward.

“You only have a few friends.”

Spinel looked right at Garnet before taking a step backward.

“You don’t have any friends.”

She took a step forward.

“You used to have a lot of friends.”

She took a hesitant step forward.

“A friend betrayed you.”

Spinel cringed and took another step forward. She was dangerously close to the chair. Two more steps and she was going to have to sit down. She ran her gloved thumb across her locket to try to calm herself.

“There’s something in the pocket of your hoodie.”

Spinel immediately stopped playing with it as she took a step forward.

“You would get in trouble for having it on campus.”

She stepped back.

“You don’t want me to see it because you’re embarrassed by it.”

Another step back.

“The friend that betrayed you gave it to you.”

She stepped back.

Garnet pursed her lips before carefully saying, “It wasn’t from the friend, but it was a gift.”

Spinel stepped forward.

“You want me to stop asking about it.”

Spinel stepped forward and her leg hit something hard which she realized to be the back of the wooden chair. The game was over.

Spinel looked back and fourth between the chair and the counselor before begrudgingly sitting down.

Seeing her sour face, Garnet smiled kindly, “Why don’t we change the subject?” Spinel shrugged and muttered, “Well whaddya wanna talk about?” “Hmmm,” Garnet hummed, a finger to her lips, “Tell me about your time in foster care. I know that you’ve been in there for a while. Surely there must be some stuff you wouldn’t mind telling me about.” “Whaddya wanna know?” she asked. “Tell me about your current foster mom. Is she nice to you?”

“Eh,” Spinel shrugged, “Could be worse. Can’t say I like her though.” “Oh?” Garnet tilted her head, “Why not?”

“She’s always giving these corny motivational speeches and tellin’ me how I need to forget about my past and my anger,” Spinel said bitterly. Garnet pursed her lips, “What does she mean by ‘let go of your past?’ What does she want you to forget about?”

“Whatever makes me mad,” Spinel shrugged. “Well, what makes you mad?” Garnet promoted.

Spinel grit her teeth as she tried to figure out how to respond. What makes her angry?! How about being so broken you can’t hold yourself together for an entire week of school?! How about not being happy since you were eleven?! How about wasting 5 years of your life happily playing a stupid game?! Then wasting another 6 years of your life searching for someone, only to have them fool you into thinking they were your friend in a matter of days because you’re just that stupid?! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

But Spinel said none of this out loud. Instead she got so wrapped up in her own downward spiral she didn’t notice when her hands reached up and began pulling at her pigtails.

“Spinel? Spinel!” Garnet raised her voice.

The girl’s pink eyes refocused on the woman on the other side of the desk who was giving her a concerned look.

Spinel didn’t know how to respond and the two sat in silence for a few seconds before the bell rang overhead and Spinel darted out of the office without another word.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words of wisdom and mac & cheese

After bolting out of Garnet’s office, Spinel wondered if it was too late to go back and convince the principal to expel her. What a waste.

Other students began to pour into the hallways. The noise painfully reminded her of her lack of headphones, but she took comfort in her ability to disappear into the crowd and did just that.

\--------------------------------------------

“Hey Steven!” The boy in question smiled and slowed down so that Amethyst could catch up to him and they could walk to theater class together.

“Hey Amethyst,” he smiled. The lavender haired girl smiled mischievously, “Riddle me this. How do you keep a dummy in suspense?” Steven played along, “I don’t know Amethyst. How?” Amethyst didn’t respond and speed walked ahead of him into the theater classroom.

Quickly catching on, Steven laughed and followed her inside, but his laughter was cut off and his voice made something akin to a record scratch when he laid eyes on the girl with the pink hair and magenta eyes once again. She was back.

Spinel glared at him when they briefly made eye contact, but seemed to be avoiding looking at him entirely. Having learnt his lesson from the first day of school, Steven made sure to advert his eyes. Amethyst also spotted the girl and threw a protective arm around Steven, quickly guiding the boy the other side of the room.

Steven’s mind went back to the day that Spinel had first punched him and his dad had taken him home from school. Greg drove him back home to the house and since they were both feeling a bit hungry, Greg helped Steven start up some mac and cheese, since Steven had one hand occupied with the ice he was still holding to his eye. While they were waiting for the water to boil, an awkward silence fell over the two. Steven knew that his dad had questions, but he wasn’t sure if he had answers.

“So...do you want to talk about it?” his dad started gently.

“Sure,” Steven shrugged looking down at the kitchen counter with a frown.

“Can you tell me about that girl, her name’s Spinel, right?”

“Yeah. We had to do a group project together for theater. We had gotten off on the wrong foot at first, so I thought that the project would be the perfect opportunity to get on the right track.”

“But that didn’t happen, did it?”

“That just it! I thought that it  _ did _ . I thought we had made a connection when we had been working together!” Steven huffed in frustration. Although, he did neglect to tell his dad  _ how  _ they had made that connection. Foster care still seemed like a very sensitive issue to her and he didn’t want to betray her trust...despite what she had done. What was with him?

“I thought we were friends. I know that that necklace was very important to her, but she didn’t even give me the chance to explain. She just attacked me. Friends don’t do that.”

“Well son, there’s always more to a person. You can spend years with somebody and still be finding out new things about them. You can’t expect to know how she’s going to act after only knowing her for a little while,” Greg advised, “She didn’t do the right thing of course, but you might be missing something.”

“But what could I be missing?”

Greg shrugged, “Schtu-ball, you’re not a mind reader. It’s got to be her choice to offer up that information, and it’s probably going to take her some time to do that.”

Steven nodded, as always, his dad was right. 

“In the mean time, this cheesy goodness won’t dig into itself,” Greg smiled and placed two bowls of mac and cheese front of them. The younger Universe smiled as they both dug in, but the ache in his head both physically and mentally persisted.

Steven was brought back into the present when Jamie began class. He reached a hand to his, now faded, black eye. He risked a glance at the girl who had given it to him, fortunately for him, she was just staring out the window. “What’s she thing about?” he wondered, “Was she sorry?”

His solution to everything has always been to talk, yet that didn’t seem like it was an option here. He was at a loss for what to do.

Amethyst looked over at Steven and saw where he was looking. She leaned over and whispered to him, “Listen dude, I know you have a habit of making friends with literally everybody, but the last thing I need is to get suspended because I gave  _ her _ a black eye. Trust me. Just let it go.”

Steven shot Amethyst a guilty smile and nodded his head. She was right, it probably was in his best interest to let it all go, and avoid getting Amethyst suspended. So why was there a voice in the back of his head telling him that he would regret it if he didn’t try to reach out to Spinel again?


	10. Chapter 10

She could do this, she could do this, she could do this. But as Spinel knocked on that dreaded door for a second time she realized something: She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this. Nevertheless, it was too late, she already heard Garnet saying she could come in.

Spinel opened the door and searched the counselor’s face for any sort of clue as to what the woman was thinking, but Garnet had an amazing poker face and it didn’t help that she worn those big stupid sunglasses. “Hello Spinel. Please, take a seat,” Garnet smiled, ignoring the girl’s scrutinizing looks. Spinel slumped in her chair, not in the mood to play games.

“I know that our last session...didn’t end the best that it could. So I’d like to take a different approach,” Garnet began. Spinel tilted her head, mildly intrigued. “We’re going to start smaller with the questions this time and you can feel free to not answer any that you don’t want to.”

Spinel shrugged, “Sure why not.”

\--------------------------------------------

Garnet knew that she was going to need to do this carefully so that this secession didn’t end the same as yesterday’s.

One of Garnet’s moms, Sapphire, had taught her how to cold read people and it looked like she would be putting those skills to the test today.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Spinel shrugged, “Don’t have one.”

“A favorite food?”

“Donuts.”

So far, so good. “Any hobbies?”

Spinel paused for a few seconds before the barely audibly muttering, “Gymnastics.” It was tough to read Spinel’s face but Garnet managed to detect a flicker of joy when saying that word, so she lightly pushed the subject, “Oh? How long, have you been doing gymnastics?”

There was another pause before Spinel answered, “Since forever,” Garnet noticed the faintest traces of a fond smile.

“Any good memories with it?” 

Spinel’s smile grew even more fond as Garnet could practically see the memories flash behind her magenta eyes, but then it was like somebody clicked off a light and Spinel frowned, “Pass.”

It was time to change the subject, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Spinel froze and Garnet immediately regretted her question, worrying that she had overstepped. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately) for her, Spinel simply put that mask of attitude and uncaring back on and just shrugged, “I dunno.”

Garnet hummed; both in acknowledgement of what Spinel had said, and at a thought that had just occurred to her. It was a little risky but the talk of jobs gave Garnet an idea.

“Do you have a job right now?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had a job before?”

“No. And what’s with all this talk about jobs anyhow?”

Garnet shrugged, “I just thought I would bring it up. Seems like something that might be good for you.”

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel eyes narrowed. Who did this lady think she was, trying to decided what was best for her?! Spinel snarled at Garnet, “Oh what? So you think that if I just put in ‘a hard days work,’” she put on a big fake grin, but it fell back into a frown with each of her next words, “then I’ll ‘see reason’ and become a ‘productive member of society.’” She put a couple of words in air quotes, but they were hardly needed as her voice dripped with sarcasm.  
  
Spinel started to become even more angry, “Den alla my problems ‘ill magically go away! Bam, presto, chango, problem solved!” She was seething by the time she finished her rant.

\--------------------------------------------

At first Garnet was confused as to why Spinel was becoming so livid after a simple suggestion, but she quickly realized what Spinel was doing, constructing a mental reality. She was trying to paint Garnet as the bad guy. Spinel wanted an excuse to hate and not trust her.

Garnet needed to prove her wrong immediately, so she interjected quickly, “No, not at all. It’s just that you mentioned to me that you’re foster mom frustrates you. So it seemed like a good opportunity to get out of the house more and give yourself a goal to work towards.” Garnet seemed to have successfully diffused the situation, because Spinel just slumped back into her chair, her rant seemed to have depleted her energy, “Whatevah.”

The bell rang and Spinel shrugged and mumbled that she’d think about it.

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel left the office that day thinking, “Well that certainly went better than last time.” She definitely didn’t suddenly trust Garnet, but the words of her counselor were still cycling through her head, “A goal to work towards.”


	11. Chapter 11

“I’m so glad you could come today Connie,” Steven grinned at his best friend, as they walked to Funland. “Me too!” Connie smiled, “You know, I hear that they have a new prize. It’s a sword called the Excalibur of Excellence. But it costs a lot, like 300 tickets.”

Steven was slightly shocked at the high price, but remained positive, “Well. I guess were just going to have to work together to win it!”

Upon their arrival, they rode a bunch of rides and then hit the arcade, ready to win that sword. They played a bunch of games. It was a slow process and Steven was half tempted to pull an Amethyst and cheat at skee-ball. But he knew that Connie would reprimand him, so he continued to get the tickets fair an square. It took a while, but eventually they were able to get 300 tickets.

Walking up to the prize counter, the two were so caught up in excited conversation about what they would do with the sword that they weren’t paying attention to much of anything else. So when Steven turned his head, all words died in his throat, as his brown eyes unexpectedly locked with a magenta pair.

Spinel glared at him from behind the display case of cheaply made, overpriced prizes, “Welcome to the Funland Arcade,” she said without bothering to smile, “What can I do for you?”

\--------------------------------------------

Connie wasn’t sure what was going on, but she was sure that it wasn’t good. That Funland employee clearly knew Steven and at first she seemed surprised, maybe even slightly scared, when she saw him, but quickly recovered and glared at her friend.

Meanwhile, Steven didn’t recover at all and just stood there clearly trying to think of something to say. Seeing Steven in distress, Connie knew that she had to get them out of there.

She turned back to the employee, but when the two locked eyes Connie felt a flicker of recognition in the back of her mind. She could have sworn that she has seen that girl before, but she had no idea where.

“I..um..we would like the Excalibur of Excellence. Here’s the 300 tickets,” she quickly shoved the tickets onto the counter, hoping to hurry things along. But the pink haired girl behind the counter didn’t share the same sentiment, “Hold on. You said 300 hundred tickets?”

“Um...yeah,” Connie nodded uncomfortably, squirming under the girl’s scrutinizing gaze. “Sorry, but that’s gonna cost ya 350,” Spinel pointed to a sign that said as much.

Connie glanced over at Steven who was still floundering. She needed to speed this along, “Okay. I guess we better go and win some more,” she smiled cheerfully, snatching their tickets back from the counter and dragging Steven away.

As soon as they managed to round a corner where they were out of sight and earshot, Connie turned to her best friend, “Steven what’s wrong? What happened? Do you know that girl?”

The boy in question finally managed to snap out of it, “I-uhhh...Remember how I got that black eye from a girl two weeks ago?”

“Ohhhh,” Connie said, quickly putting two and two together. She had already gotten the rundown on Steven’s black eye, but she hadn’t expected to eventually meet the girl face to face.

“We should go, then. You shouldn’t have to be around her.”

“But Connie. We still need 50 more tickets.”

“Steven, don’t be stupid.”

“Come on. You were looking forward to this all month.”

Connie cursed Steven’s habit of putting everyone else before him, “Alright fine. You can help me get the tickets, but don’t come with me to the prize counter. Deal?”

“Deal,” Steven smiled. Connie put on a mischievous grin, “Now come on! I bet I can get more tickets than you at basketball!” Steven grinned back, “You’re on!” They raced back to the games, laughing while doing so and managed to get another 50 tickets in no time.

As per their agreement, Connie went back to the prize counter by herself and as she laid eyes on the girl behind the counter once again, that flicker of recognition sparked in her brain again. That pink hair. Those magenta eyes. She could swear that she’d seen this girl before, but where?

Connie put on her friendliest smile, “Here you are. 350 tickets,” she said, placing them on the counter. The girl nodded silently and got the sword out of the display case and handed to her.

Connie smiled, “Thank you-,” her eyes drifted over to the girl’s name tag, “-Spinel.”

Wait a minute? Spinel?!

That unique name brought so many memories flooding back through her head. The scars on her cheeks that Connie hadn’t paid any mind to originally, suddenly became so obvious that she wanted to kick herself for not realizing it sooner. “Spinel is here,” Connie thought to herself, “But why? Also, why was she going around giving people black eyes? This didn’t make any sense!”

“Hey. Can I ask you a question?” Connie asked. Spinel just glared at her, “No, not really. You’re holding up the line.”

Connie flushed with embarrassment when she turned around and noticed that there were people beginning to line up behind her, “Right sorry.” She darted out and headed back to Steven, but questions were still whirling through her head.

Steven had watched from a distance, but had seen Connie’s panic. Now it was his turn to ask questions, “Connie? What’s wrong? What did she say to you?”

“No. She didn’t say anything bad. It’s just that I-uh...I think I know her.”

“You what?!”

“Well  _ knew _ her,” Connie corrected herself, “I wasn’t sure at first, but unless there’s another pink haired girl named Spinel with scars on her cheeks, then I think I have something to show you.”

\--------------------------------------------

They got Steven’s dad and Connie’s mom to agree to a last minute sleepover at her house, but on the way there Connie refused to tell him anything, saying that it will be better to show instead of tell.

Upon their arrival, Steven and Connie left Greg to chat with Dr. Maheswaran, while they ran upstairs. Connie made a brief stop at her room, to toss the Excalibur of Excellence onto her bed before grabbing Steven’s arm and racing him upstairs to the attic.

“Connie what is this?” Steven asked again once they entered the dark and dusty room. Connie didn’t reply and instead grabbed a cardboard box labeled “Home Videos” and opened it to reveal a bunch of VHS tapes. Connie began to sift through them, “No, no, no, no, no, no-Yes!” She held out an ordinary looking tape like it was gold.

Connie went over to an old television in the attic and put the tape in. Steven winced as the bright light of the TV filled the dark attic. At first Steven had trouble telling what was on the screen, but then the video adjusted enough to reveal Mr. Maheswaran, clearly fiddling with the camera

“Hello? Is this thing on? Testing, testing.” Then Steven saw Dr. Maheswaran’s shoulder and heard her say, “Yes dear, it’s recording.”

“Great!” He turned the camera to the kitchen table, where two young girls appeared to be baking, “Alright girls. What are we doing today?” “Making cookies!” a young Connie smiled at the camera before going back to diligently mixing the ingredients in the bowl.

Then the camera turned to the second girl who was clearly trying to sneak some chocolate chips from the bag while Mr. Maheswaran wasn’t looking.

Steven stared at the girl in the video. Those magenta eyes, that unmistakable pink hair. It was- “Spinel!” Mr. Maheswaran said in the video. The young Spinel darted her hand back, looking sheepish. Mr. Maheswaran just laughed in amusement, causing Spinel to grin wide too.

Connie paused the video, leaving the young Spinel smiling on the screen. Steven looked at Connie, silently asking for more information.

Connie obliged, “She was my foster sister when I was seven and she was eleven. She was really nice and friendly. But then...she changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“One day, my mom and I had to go to the grocery store and left her home alone. Then, when we got back...we found her asleep on her bed, but she had these scars on her cheeks,” Connie motioned running three fingers down each cheek, “She also started acting different, more distant and angry.”

“Why-? How-?”

Connie shrugged helplessly, “I don’t know. She had to go away after that. So we never found out what happened.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic isn’t dead yet I swear!

After Steven and that girl (who Spinel could have sworn she had seen before) left, Spinel wasn’t given a lot of time to contemplate that interaction because she was quickly overrun with the crowds of shrieking children, who had all the time in the world waiting in line to decide what prize they wanted, but would take their sweet time deciding once they got to the counter. Not a moment too soon, her coworker, Larimar, came over and lent her a hand.

With the two of them working together, they managed to thin out the line until it was just the two of them once again. Spinel sighed, her ears still hurting, “I know that this is an amusement park and all, but these kids don’t have ta be scream’n so loud.”

Larimar smiled at her, “Oh I really like the screams myself. They’re music to my ears.” Spinel gave her a weird look, “If you say so,” and decided not to comment further. With the line gone, Larimar assured Spinel that she could take care of the counter by herself and encouraged Spinel to man the floor and watch out for cheaters.

As Spinel walked around, she didn’t see anyone cheating (surprisingly enough) so her mind inevitably began to wander. She thought back to Larimar. That lady was always so cheerful even with the loudest of children. She didn’t think she’d ever understand it. Almost as if the universe wanted to prove her point, a roller coaster shot past her and Spinel made a face at all of the obnoxious noise.

The pink haired girl distracted herself by telling off a would be litterer. That was one of the benefits of her job. There was always a distraction. She still had no idea how she had gotten this job or why she had agreed to apply. But she had it and, although she’d never admit it, she was definitely enjoying herself. It helped to distract her from home. Maybe her counselor was on to something.

Spinel must have gotten used to those screams of joy, because her head only perked up when she heard a sound of frustration. “Oh come on! I was so close!” She turned her head to two kids who were clearly having trouble with the ringtoss.

“Whatever it’s rigged anyway. Let’s go.” said the first one. “No! We still have some rings left!” the second kid protested, and turned from his friend back to the game and started throwing, still failing to land even one.

Spinel watched how the kid’s hand moved. He was doing it all wrong. No wonder he couldn’t stick one! And yet they dared to say that it was rigged! She had half a mind to go out there and show them how it was done.

The kid tossed yet another ring and it missed. “Oh screw it!” Spinel thought to herself, and walked over. The kid was just about to throw his third to last ring but Spinel caught his wrist, stopping him from ruining his chances, “Hey. Ya know you’re doing’ it wrong.”

“What do you mean?” the boy asked as Spinel let go.

“Your aim. It’s off.”

“Well yeah, I can see that.”

“You gotta flick your wrist. Just tossing it willy nilly will getcha nowhere.”

The friend who had called the game rigged eyed her suspiciously, “Isn't it your job to make sure that we don’t win, so that way you make more money?” Spinel rolled her eyes, “Yeah, pretty much,” she replied honestly, “but you said that this game is rigged. I take that as a personal offense. It’s not rigged.”

“Yeah it is!” the friend shot back, but then they paused and Spinel could see the gears turning in the kid’s brain, “Well then why don’t we make a wager? You help my friend here win. If you can’t, then it’s rigged. If you can, then, it’s not. Winner gets to rub it in the loser’s face.”

Spinel wanted to roll her eyes. Even if she won, the kid would win the prize. It was a win win for this kid and she had something to loose. But the competitive streak in her made her unable to turn down the challenge. “Deal,” she smiled and turned back to the friend.

“All right kid. So what ya wanna do is curl your wrist inward. Yeah, just like that. Then ya give it a flick and let go when your wrist is straight.” Spinel pantomimed and the kid nodded.

The boy got a determined look on his face. He tossed his first ring, but was too cautious and it didn’t even make it to the bottles. Spinel revised his form, “Come on kid. You gotta put some more muscle into it!” The kid nodded and tossed the ring with all his might, causing it to fly over all of the bottles entirely and land on the ground. The boy smiled sheepishly at her. Spinel sighed, “Alright. This is our last ring,” she tried to mimick the stuff Garnet had said to her, “Just take a deep breath, curl your wrist in, and let go when your wrist is straight.”

The boy nodded, took a deep breath, and did just that. Spinel couldn’t watch and closed her eyes, but soon snapped them open when she heard a scream of joy. She looked over and saw that they had indeed landed the ring on a bottle. Spinel grinned and practically ran behind the counter to get the boy his prize.

The friend begrudgingly admitted defeat and she smirked as she lightly ribbed her victory in his face, although she could see that they were happy to see their friend so overjoyed.

Speaking of being overjoyed, the boy was still jumping up and down hugging his stuffed animal prize. Spinel suddenly understood what Larimar meant what she said that screams of joy were music to her ears, she couldn’t stop smiling herself.

That boy being so happy reminded her of herself when she was younger. Quite frankly, they both reminded her of herself. The happiness and the competitiveness.

She hoped that neither of them turned out like her. That was a horrifying thought….Wait. “If I don’t think those kids should be like me. Then why should I want me to be like me?” Spinel wondered to herself suddenly both bitter and confused.

That’s when she realized that she had to make a change.

\--------------------------------------------

Spinel went to her next appointment with Garnet that day angry but ready to talk. She couldn’t believe she’s about to do this. What does she even expect to happen?

“She better not screw this up,” Spinel thought to herself. Though whether she meant Garnet or herself Spinel wasn’t sure.

She slammed the door to the office open. Trying to assert her dominance, over what she didn’t know.

Garnet was infuriatingly unfazed by Spinel’s entrance. “Hello Spinel. It’s good t-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Spinel cut her off. She sat down in her chair and glared at Garnet, “Listen here and listen good. I got something to say to you.” Garnet tilted her head, looking curious but also concerned.

“I-” Spinel began, but the words caught in her throat. “I-” What was she doing?! Spinel wished that she could physically ripped the words out of her mouth. “I-” Spinel was beginning to panick. Had the room always been this small?  
  


Garnet began to intervene, “Spinel it’s okay. Just calm-”

“I hate myself,” she finally admitted as she felt the tears began to well up in her eyes. And with those three words, the dam broke and it all came tumbling out.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if Spinel’s accent seems random in this chapter. What I aim for is that Spinel’s accent flairs up when she becomes overly happy or distressed. But I’m not sure if I succeeded.

“Iknowthatyouprobablydon’tcarebutIjustdon’tknowwhattodoandI-I-I...”

“Spinel.”

“IshouldjustgothisisstupidwhyamIsostupid?!”

“Spinel. Spinel look at me,” Garnet commanded more firmly this time. The girl in question did her best to blink through the tears, though it took quite a bit of will power. She already felt exhausted and her breathing was ragged.

“Do me a favor and name five thing you can see. Can you do that for me?”

Spinel wasn’t sure where her counselor was going with this, but she was too hysterical to protest, “Y-you, uh...ya sunglasses, da table, m-my bag, and da wall.”

“Good. Now name four things you can touch.”

“Umm…m-my pants,” Spinel had to pause and she swallowed back the lump in her throat, “da desk, da chair, a-and my shirt.”

“You’re doing great. Can you name three things you can hear?”

“You, me...an’ da air conditioner.”

“Two things you can smell.”

“Da wood from da desk and de lead from de pencils.”

“And one thing you can taste.”

Spinel paused, she hadn’t eaten anything that day. She had been too nervous about this appointment, “Does saliva count?”

“Close enough,” Garnet said with a warm smile, “Now, can you start again?”

“I hate myself,” Spinel said, defeated and tired.

“Do you know why?”

“I’m a failure,” Spinel took a shaky breath inward, “I can’t do nothing right. I just get angry and nothin’ ever gets better. My whole life everythin’ and everybody has been changing around me, but I only ever change for the worse.”

“How have you changed for the worse?”

Spinel smiled bitterly, “I used to be a happy kid. I used to make everybody smile, even my momma...But it turns out it was all a lie,” Spinel’s voice cracked, “It turned out she didn’t want me an’ I’m pretty sure nobody wants me at all.”

Garnet got up and went around her desk, kneeling before Spinel, “Can I hug you?”

Spinel nodded and sobbed into Garnet’s shoulder as Garnet murmured into her ear, “Well, I want you. I want you here and I’m glad that you decided to come to me. It was very brave of you and I’m really proud of you.”

They continued to hug for a little and Spinel cried into her shoulder until she didn’t have any tears left to cry. Once Garnet felt Spinel’s arms loosened from around her. The counselor got up and walked back to her side of the desk. But when she sat down, she seemed to be leaning in closer to try to lessen the distance between them.

“Some days, I just wanna run away,” Spinel admitted unprompted.

Garnet was unfazed by the topic change and just went along with it, “And go where?”

“I dunno know.”

“Well I suppose that getting away and experiencing new things might be a good way for you to find yourself. But I don’t like the idea of you being alone with no support system. I’m sure you’ve already guessed that I tried to make a compromise when I was encouraging you to get a job. By the way, has it been helping?”

Spinel shrugged, “Yeah. I like it. It’s nice to get out of the house and not have to deal with my foster mom.”

“You don’t seem to like her very much.”

“Cause I don’t. She’s always going on about how everybody would be able to live in harmony and everything would be all hunkydory if everybody stopped being so angry all the time.”

Garnet hummed, “While I do agree that anger is something that one shouldn’t hold onto. I do see the flaws in her ideology. You can’t just magically let go of anger. If it’s persistent like it is in your case, then you have to work through what’s causing it.”

“Well what’s causing it is that everyone I care about never seems to stick around too long,” Spinel replied bluntly.

Garnet nodded, “Well, you nor I can make those people come back. But a fact of life is that no matter who comes or goes, you’re stuck with yourself. So why don’t we try to work on self love during these secessions?”

Spinel shifted uncomfortably in her chair, “That took a bit of a turn, but sure I guess.”

“When do you feel most at peace with yourself?”

Spinel thought, “I do like gymnastics and also performing,” she shrugged.

“Well didn’t you mention that auditions for the fall play are coming up?”

Spinel looked at Garnet, “I see what yer doing. But I don’t think that it’s going to work out. That’s a lot of kids to be around. What if I get angry again?” The pink haired girl actually found herself genuinely worried at that thought.

“Well I noticed one of your main coping mechanisms you use to deal with your anger is to use that necklace charm that I’ve heard so much about as a touch stone. Which is also what I assume you’ve had in your jacket pocket all this time.”

Spinel sheepishly took her locket out of her jacket pocket, “And wasn’t the last time that you truly lashed out when you didn’t have it because you were looking for it?” Spinel nodded and Garnet continued, “Well, while I will be sure to teach you other coping skills, let’s try to lean into this one more.”

Garnet opened a drawer, pulled out a ribbon, and handed it to Spinel. The girl strung it through the charm and tied it around her neck. It felt amazing to have to familiar weight against her chest again.

The bell rang overhead and Garnet smiled at Spinel, “We can talk about it later, but I do think that as an act of self love you should audition for that play if you think it will make you happy.”

“I’ll-” Spinel paused. She had been about to say that she’ll think about it, but she already knew what would happen if she said that. She’d probably spend the rest of her day convincing herself that she couldn’t do it and ultimately not auditioning. It was almost funny that she already knew what she would do. She really did do the same thing over and over again. But if she wanted things to be different, if she wanted to be different, then she would have to make a change. So Spinel gave a small smile to Garnet and said, “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the inconsistent updates. Depression has been hitting me really hard, but I also just wanted to thank all of you for all of your kind and encouraging comments. They’ve helped me out a lot and never fail to put a smile on my face. My brain is still being really inconsistent with the amount of serotonin it’s giving me, so I might have to just update once a month or something, but I promise all of you that I will finish the frickin fic if it is the last thing I do!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See if you can spot my not so subtle reference to Steven Universe Future towards the end!

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be fine,” Spinel tried to reassure herself as she walked over to the cast list to find out if she had landed a role in the play, “Everything is just...swell.”

But the fact was that everything was not swell. 

Spinel was hoping against all odds that she was casted. She had accidentally imagined what it would be like to be in the play and found herself loving the idea of being on the stage again. She didn’t even want to think about how it would feel to not get casted. But now she was thinking about it!

“Stop it,” she told herself, “You haven't even seen the list yet.”

She thought back to what Garnet had told her. 

_ “Spinel, I want you to try something whenever your thoughts begin to overwhelm you. It’s a breathing exercise. You focus on taking deep breaths and visualize your thoughts as objects. For example, I like to imagine my thoughts as butterflies. I let them pass through and fly away.” _

_ “Alright. But what if my butterflies come back?” _

_ “Then you’ll just let them pass through again. Remember, they’re just thoughts. They can’t hurt you. They can only encourage you to act one way or another. It’s your job to look at them objectively and decide which ones you want to act on.” _

Most people have butterflies in their stomach, but she could feel the butterflies flying in her head. She focused on breathing deeply as she walked to the paper on the bulletin board. “They’re just butterflies,” she reminded herself, “They can’t hurt you.” 

Spinel finally laid her eyes on the list and...she was casted! Spinel couldn’t believe it. She was casted! 

“It was probably only because-” a cynical butterfly in Spinel’s head piped up. But she took a deep breath, like Garnet had taught her to do, and imagined it just flying by.

The first day of rehearsals was largely just getting to know the other actors and the people working backstage. Steven had also been cast in the play as well as his friend, who Spinel learned was named Connie. Spinel just tried to avoid them.

The second day involved going over the main scenes with the main characters, but since Spinel was a background character she wasn’t given much to do that day either. 

The real fun began on day number three. The play involved some stage combat and Spinel was really excited. One of the English teachers did some fencing as a hobby (apparently she used to do it competitively) and had agreed to teach the actors how to use prop swords.

Pearl Mare was the teacher’s name. She was a tall caucasian woman with short hair. She was actually really good at keeping the rest of the cast quiet when she was explaining the basics of the swords to them, which Spinel was incredibly grateful for. But she had acted a little weird when Spinel first saw her.

Before Ms. Mare’s demonstration, before she had even arrived, Spinel had just gotten to the theater and had been facing the other direction when she had felt a pair of eyes on her. She turned to see who, she would later find out to be, Ms. Mare standing in the doorway giving her a weird look.

Spinel narrowed her eyes at the teacher. Ms. Mare gave her a sheepish wave, having been caught staring and hurried over to talk with Mr. Cordero.

“How dare she look at me like I’m some frea-” Spinel’s butterflies started again, but a couple of butterflies that sounded an awful lot like Garnet cut in. “We don’t know why she was looking at us. She might have been looking at our unique hair or she might have thought she recognized us. Heck, she might have just been staring into space and not realized that she was looking at us.”

Spinel normally would have felt threatened, but she took a deep breath and decided to take Garnet’s advice and allow the bad thoughts to go by.

Ms. Mare began the class by setting out the rules for using the prop swords. They were still metal and could hurt somebody if you weren’t careful, blah, blah...the usual stuff about getting a bunch of idiot teenagers to not kill each other.

Then she called up Connie, who apparently had been taking fencing classes from Ms. Mare for a while now. They did a few demonstrations on technique. Spinel watched their movements like a hawk, paying attention to their footwork, the position of their arms, and even where their eyes were looking. If this was regular fencing then she definitely wouldn’t have bothered paying attention, but this was theater. She may have just been a background character, but she wanted to be the best background character she could be.

Spinel got the sword in her hand and quickly picked up on all the different fencing moves; lunge, parry, and riposte; and even felt generous enough to give advice and critiques to the different people that she practiced fighting against. 

Her quick progression did not go unnoticed. Ms. Mare took her aside so that the two could spar together and she could help her improve her form even more.

Ms. Mare apologized for staring too, “Sorry, your pink hair just reminded me of somebody else.”

Spinel nodded, “See?” she told her butterflies, “I was right she wasn’t judging us. I really need to stop being so paranoid.” But that feeling of nervousness didn’t completely subside. It was probably her imagination, but she felt like she could still see that small look of recognition in Ms. Mare’s eyes. Like the teacher was trying to figure out where she’d seen Spinel before, but couldn’t quite place it. Spinel shook the thought away and continued to work on her form.

During the break everybody went out to the lobby. Spinel still wasn’t really friends with anybody and she didn’t think she was ready to start trying that just yet (she’d have to talk with Garnet during their next secession about that). So Spinel stood off to the side and drank her water. She must have been in her own little word because she did not sense when a young girl came up to her. “Hello? It’s Spinel, right?”

Spinel nearly dropped her water as she jumped, “Wha-?! W-when did you get here?! How long have you been standing there?!”

The girl, who Spinel remembered was Connie, smiled, “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Connie. We also met at Funland.” Spinel nodded in recognition, “Okay? Nice ta meet ya.”

Connie suddenly seemed nervous, “I-umm. Do you remember meeting me before that?” Spinel was a little confused by the question, “Uhh, maybe? I mean ya kinda look familiar. Maybe I’ve seen ya around school before this?”

“No, I mean like before school started.”

“Uhhh.” Spinel wracked her brain. Connie did look familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it, “Look, if you know please tell me. I like games, but I’m not in the mood to play this sort unless you’re gonna give me a hint.”

Connie shook her head, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll get to the point. You were my foster sister.”

Spinel was shocked, but she supposed that she shouldn’t have been that surprised. She had been in and out of a lot of different homes. It was a small world after all. She was bound to run into some of them again at some point.

Now that Connie had said it, her face was beginning to ring a bell. She definitely had seen a younger version of Connie. She remembered the Maheswarans, they were a nice family. 

The mom could be a bit serious and didn’t like to play, but she was nice nonetheless. The dad was fun and he encouraged Spinel to teach Connie different stuff.

Why did she have to leave that house again? Oh. Right. Spinel unconsciously raised a hand up to her scars, as unpleasant memories flew around in her brain.

“Let them go by,” Spinel mentally repeated to herself, “Let them go by.”

It had felt like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds. Spinel remembered that Connie was still standing there, “Oh...uh...yeah. I remember. How are you?” she asked in a way that totally sounded forced.

Connie smiled understandingly, “I know. It’s awkward. But I thought I saw you from somewhere when we met at Funland and then I saw an old home video of the two of us. Do you remember those?”

The pleasant memory came back to Spinel and she smiled, “Oh yeah. I remember when your dad was making those home videos. Did he ever get good at working that camera?”

“Wellllll. He can turn it on, but turning it off is another story.”

“Good to see he’s improving,” Spinel snickered, “He used to be obsessed with making home videos. Remember that time when he filmed us making chocolate chip cookies? I was so close to stealing some chocolate chips, but I couldn’t since he ended up catching me because of the video.”

“Oh yeah, that’s actually the home video that I saw. I’m so sorry that your heist was foiled.”

“Ehh, don’t worry about it. I don’t think a life of crime is the one for me anyway.”

They continued to reminisce about when Spinel taught Connie to do a cartwheel, playing together, etc. The stuff that they had to reminisce about was in short supply though since Spinel hadn’t been with Connie’s family too long. Yet, contrary to what Spinel would expect, Connie never pushed her for a reason for why she had to leave all of a sudden or the scars on her cheeks.

When they stopped talking about their past, they talked about play rehearsal. Connie complimented Spinel on her fencing. The younger girl had been working with Ms. Mare (although Connie just called her as Pearl) for a while now and she could already see that Spinel was a natural. “Aww gee,” Spinel blushed.

“Just be careful with your parry. I noticed that you’re sticking your elbow out. You could end up accidentally hurting yourself or somebody else if you miscalculate.

“Oh, please, I’d never hurt a fly.”

Connie raised an eyebrow and gestured to Steven, whose back was turned at the moment. Spinel blushed and looked genuinely ashamed.

Connie’s critical eye softened, “Look, I don’t really know what happened, and it’s none of my business, but I think that you should apologize to him.”

Spinel dragged her hands across her face, “But ignoring the problem would be so much easier.” “And when had that actually ever worked for anybody in history?” Connie asked. Spinel sighed, “Probably never.”

“You know, I know a good counselor. Her name’s Garnet Magma. I’m sure she could help you.”   
  
“Oh, yeah. I’m already seeing her.”

“Well maybe you could ask her for help the next time you see her,” Connie suggested.

“Mayb- Alright, I will.”

\--------------------------------------------

“And so this girl named Connie says that I should apologize to Steven, but I dunno. He probably hates me so what’s the point? What do you think? You live with him don’t ya?”

Garnet nodded, “I do and if I know one thing about Steven it’s that he will always prefer to be allies than enemies. I highly doubt that he’ll hate you forever. Besides neither of us know if he hates you right now.”

“He definitely hates me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Why wouldn’t he? I punched him and gave him one hell of a shiner. All over a locket!” Spinel flushed slightly when she realized how petty it all sounded now, and how seriously she had taken it at the time.

“Well that necklace was very important to you. So your actions seemed justified at the time, but now you realize that they weren’t,” Garnet reasoned calmly. “So?” Spinel asked, not sure where she was going with this. “So it means that you’re improving. Give yourself some credit. As long as you keep on trying to make positive changes, you’ll be fine. And you can decide when you’re ready to apologize.”

Spinel groaned, “This was supposed to be a yes or no question. Can’t you just tell me when to do it?”

Garnet smiled, “Sorry, that’s for you to decide.”

\--------------------------------------------

As hesitant as she was to admit it, Spinel loved the feeling of being on stage. She loved the warmth of the stage lights, the buseling of people coming and going, practicing lines. She finally felt in her element.

It was the first day of the week before opening night and the theater was in full swing. Lights were being finalized, lines rehearsed, costumes tailored. Spinel loved it, especially since she didn’t have to spend as much time at her foster home listening to her stupid foster mother. The only downside was that now, as they neared the actual date of the play, rehearsals began to run long. This particular rehearsal also looked like it was going to run long, so Spinel knew that she was going to have to be a responsible kid and call to let her foster mom know that she’d be home late. 

She stepped out into the theater lobby where she found none other than Steven Universe getting a drink of water. He nearly did a spit take upon seeing her, “S-Sp-Spinel!”

“Uhhh. Hi,” Spinel speed walked over to the ticket booth which she knew had a school phone she could use. She was about to try the knob when Steven piped up, “You know I’m not mad at you, right?”

Spinel sighed and turned around, “Well you should be. You know, you’re way too forgiving. That’s probably going to come back to bite you one of these days.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Spinel eyed him critically, “You know, I don’t get you Steven Universe.” Steven squirmed under her gaze, “What do you mean?”

“I glare at you, you want to do a project with me. I am rude to you, you invite me over to your house. I literally knock you unconscious, and you tell me that you’re not mad!” Spinel ranted.

“Okay, well when you put it like that-”

“You  **should** hate me!”

“Look, I’m sorry if I-”

“NO!” Spinel realized that she had shouted and immediately lowered her voice, “I mean-uh, no. I’m sorry, for jumping to conclusions about you, being rude to you, and for overreacting and punching you in the face. Okay? But you shouldn’t be the one who’s sorry. Not everything rests on you to be the peacekeeper.”

Steven looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t figure out how to say it. Spinel just sighed and turned back to the ticketbooth but when she tried the doorknob, it was locked. “Of course,” she muttered, “See ya around Steven, I gotta go and use the phone in the classroom.”

Steven perked up at the opportunity to help someone, “Oh, you need a phone? You can borrow mine to make a call if you want.”

Spinel stared at Steven incredulously, “You really don’t hate me do you?”

  
Steven blushed and rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, I guess I could hold a grudge, but I’ve found that that never does anyone any good.”

Spinel’s face flushed even though she knew Steven hadn’t intended those words for her.

“Besides, you just apologized and are clearly trying to be better, so what’s not to forgive?”

“I guess, but...I dunno. I’m gonna go use the school’s phone. You-uh...have a nice day and um, sorry again.” Spinel hurried off.

\--------------------------------------------

Steven went to bed that night still thinking about Spinel. He wanted to be friends again. She was fun to be around, and it’s not like she had done anything that would cause lasting damage. 

He fell asleep and had a strange dream. A dream about a six year old girl with pink hair on the beach, doing cartwheels and handstands while he and his dad watched and laughed at her silly little performance.

\--------------------------------------------

The last performance of the fall play had just ended. The actors went out in costume to the lobby to receive congratulations and flowers from their family members.

Spinel looked around, this was supposed to be the play that her foster mother attended. She wasn’t surprised that the lady hadn’t shown up. What she was surprised by though was the fact that it hurt a little to see everybody talking with their friends and family while she stood there alone. 

Spinel sighed and just as she turned to go to the dressing rooms, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Garnet. “Hello Spinel,” her counselor greeted.

“Uhh, hey. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Garnet smiled, “And miss the play? Never in a million light years. You did a fantastic job by the way.” Then Garnet held up something that Spinel hadn’t realized she was carrying. It was a small boutique, nothing too big or fancy.

Spinel blushed at the sight of the gift and allowed Garnet to place it in her arms. It was comprised of yellow solidagos, blue hydrangeas, and white clematises. She didn’t quite know why, but it made her strangely happy.

“Thank you,” she said to Garnet, still smiling down at the flowers, “It’s perfect.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I the only one who was mad that Spinel didn’t get any flowers at the end of the movie?


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning!: Homophobia & telling repressed minorities to be calm.
> 
> I have a confession. I wrote myself into a corner. The only way that I could figure out how to get out of it is to have the foster mother be homophobic. Sorry that this development is a bit out of nowhere. I still tried to make it as in character as possible.
> 
> PS: The foster mother's treatment of Spinel and other minorities is in no way meant to reflect or comment on current events.

Spinel went back to her foster home with her bouquet. She was in such a good mood that she barely paid attention to her foster mother's flimsy excuse for not going to the play.

Apparently she had found out that there was a gay couple in the play and she just couldn’t support that. “I ought to write a letter to that school for subjecting the kids to such messaging,” her foster mother had said.

Spinel just kept quiet. She knew that the lady wouldn’t really do that. Her bark was a lot stronger than her bite.

Her foster mother’s need to tell everybody that they were just hateful and angry and how they all just needed to calm down extended to not only Spinel, but also “Those poor saps on the news who just need to be calm and reflect.”

It was ironic. She was almost glad that her foster mom didn’t try to hide how she felt about “these angry people.” That way, Spinel could be extra careful to not let it slip that her childhood crush was Minnie Mouse.

Spinel had never thought that liking girls was a bad thing, after all she had three grandmothers, until she had entered foster care and found that many of the homes were less than accepting. 

Life went on and it was only a little while until winter finals. Spinel had put up with her foster mother’s homophobia by using the butterfly technique to watch her bad thoughts go by. But it was starting to get incredibly hard. Spinel couldn’t help but think about her grandmothers. How every time that lady said that a girl couldn’t love another girl, and how these sick people needed to seek help, she was including her grandmothers in that description. It began to pile up until one day, Spinel snapped.

Spinel had been sitting on the couch with the news on as background noise. Her attention was focused on the locket she was continuously turning over in her hand. She still felt bad for damaging it and she still couldn’t forget that there was a photo of her momma trapped in it. But it wasn’t as big of a deal now. She’d found that she hadn't needed it as often to calm her down now that she’d been working with Garnet. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She still hadn’t told Garnet about her momma but she imagined that Garnet would tell her that if the locket made her happy, then it was fine. She did love the locket, it was still a gift from her grandmothers. She smiled down at it, remembering how happy she was when she had first received it.

That happiness immediately vanished when she heard her foster mother enter the room and make a noise of disgust. Spinel looked up and realized that the news was showing a pride parade. Spinel hadn’t even realized that it had come on, but when she saw it, she smiled. She wished she could be with the people on screen and not back here.

Her thought was only further justified when her foster mom began another rant about how these people were sick and so hateful. According to her, there’s so much hate in the world and we should all just forget about it and make nice.

Spinel tried to remain calm and imagine the butterflies, but she just couldn’t. There were too many, and the number was only growing with her foster mother’s words. She couldn’t break it down into smaller, manageable pieces. So she snapped.

“WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!” she jumped up from the couch, completely shutting up her foster mother in the process, “You want people to be happy! But you only want them to be happy by fitting a mold that you have in mind!”

“Why are you defending those people?! They're just hateful and angry?!” her foster mother asked incredulously, still recovering from Spinel’s audacity to talk back to her.

“Because I am angry, and I have every right to be! I had three grandmothers who loved me more than anything and you have the gall to say that they were just hateful and angry. Well guess what?! I like girls too and I’m happy that my grandmothers taught me to accept that part of myself! Because I sure as hell know that you would rather I lock it up and throw away the key!” Spinel yelled.

Her foster mother got a look in her eye that Spinel automatically hated. “Spinel,” she said with a disturbing calmness, “you’re more lost than I thought you were, but it’s okay, I can help you. I can help you get rid of these horrendous thoughts. Okay? You’re just unwell.”

Spinel looked down, her shoulders quivering, and for a moment it looked like she was going to start crying. Her foster mother took a step forward but immediately took two steps back when she realized what was really going on. Spinel wasn’t crying, she was laughing. It sounded pained but also maniacal, her fuchsia eyes looked unhinged, “HA! Well if being gay is a disease, consider me happily infected and be sure to bring me any cures you can find so I can smash them!”

“Spinel, you don’t know what you’re talki-”

Spinel cut her off, “Yeah, I do know what I’m talking about. But fine, let’s play it by your rules. If being gay is a disease, then you might want to back the hell away from me becuase you don’t want to catch it.”

Her foster mother did seem genuinely afraid when Spinel had said that, and Spinel had half a mind to run with that power. But a butterfly in her head reminded her that that probably wasn’t the best idea. So Spinel just laughed in her foster mother’s face and went upstairs to her room.

The walls weren’t the thickest, so Spinel could hear her foster mother on the phone. She couldn’t quite make out everything in the conversation, but she managed to figure out the she must have been talking to Ms. Zircon.

Spinel felt a pang of shame. She didn’t want to cause her social working more trouble, but she also knew that she couldn’t have been able to keep up the act of pretending to be fine when she was with her foster mom.

Spinel eventually heard a knock on her door. She opened it and her foster mother, with gloved hands, shoving the phone at her before practically running away. Spinel fumbled with the phone, before putting it up to her ear, with a very good idea of who was on the other end.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time.

Spinel giggled and started first, “Sorry that I’m getting kicked out of another one.”

“No, no, no! I’m so sorry for putting you with her. If I had know she was homophobic, I would have never stuck you with her,” Ms. Zircon assured.

“Well, that’s all over and down with. So when are you going to come to pick me up?” Spinel asked.

A very tired sigh came from Ms. Zircon, that sounded an awful lot like the kids in the library cramming in preparation for winter finals. “That’s the problem. The only places that I can move you are pretty far away. You’d have to change schools, and with winter finals so close, you probably won’t be able to take them and end up having to repeat this year of high school.

Spinel’s body went cold at that thought. She had been working so hard. High school had gotten easier while she was at Beach City. She didn’t know if she could survive another year in an entirely new school.

Ms. Zircon continued, “The other option would be for you to stick around in this home until you take your winter finals and then I move you. I’ve managed to convince your fostemother that she’ll be able to survive that long. I know that neither option is great, but I do want your opinion on what you want to do.”

“Can I think about it?” Spinel asked after a bit of hesitation.

“Alright. But you’ll have to let me know by tomorrow night.”

Spinel went to school the next day and waited with baited breath for her secession with Garnet. When it finally came, she practically burst into the room, her built up anxiety causing her to ramble at 100 miles per hour.

When Garnet had finally managed to get Spinel to talk at a normal speed, she listened silently as Spinel explained her predicament to Garnet. “And now I have to decide by tonight,” Spinel finished.

Garnet seemed to want to say something, but Spinel kept talking, “And what’s worse, I’d probably be willing to stay with that lady for the rest of the school year, not just the rest of the semester,” Spinel sighed, “I like it here and I want to finish high school here, but none of my options include staying here.”

Garnet was quiet for a moment, “And Ms. Zircon is absolutely sure that there are no other options?”

Spinel nodded, “There’s nobody close to here who’s willing to take me in.”

Garnet seemed to be considering something, before nodding to herself. “Pearl is going to kill me for this,” she muttered under her breath, whatever that meant, and took out her phone.

She dialed what Spinel recognized was Ms. Zircon’s phone number. When her social worker picked up, Garnet put the phone on speaker, so that Spinel could hear too, and introduced herself, “I’m Spinel’s counselor, or hopefully former counselor if this works out. Would it be possible for me to foster Spinel?” Garnet asked. Spinel froze.

Ms. Zircon humed, “I’d have to pull some strings, but yes I think I could make that work.”

Garnet took off her sunglasses and looked up at Spinel. Even her counselor's heterochromatic eyes seemed to say that she couldn’t believe that Ms. Zircon had said yes either. “I thought I would check first, so that I didn’t get your hopes up,” Garnet told Spinel, “but now that we know it’s possible, would you like for me to foster you?”

Spinel nodded, still completely dumbstruck. Garnet smiled and turned her attention to her phone, “Good,” Garnet told Ms. Zircon, “I’ll be sure to contact you later so we can sort out the details.”

After hanging up, Garnet looked at Spinel, “I’m sorry to say that I’m going to have to step down as your counselor. But something tells me that you’re already a lot better at handling yourself and you're going to be just fine.”

Spinel finally managed to shake herself out of her stupor and ran to the other side of the desk to hug Garnet.

  
  



	16. Chapter 16

When Spinel moved in, it was awkward at first to say the least.

Amethyst and Spinel still didn’t particularly like each other, but seemed to have come to a silent truce. They were both too busy cramming for finals to really care about each other's existence.

Pearl, who had told Spinel that it was perfectly fine to call her by her first name when outside of school, still seemed to give Spinel weird looks. She was nice enough (although she had made it clear to Garnet that she didn’t like that the counselor didn’t consult her on fostering Spinel beforehand). But she kept on looking at Spinel like she recognized her, but just couldn’t place who she was.

Garnet was always a kind face. Spinel felt like she had a big sister watching over her.

But speaking of older sisters, Steven. He was kind to her, of course, he’s Steven. But Steven and Spinel couldn’t seem to figure out what to make of each other. There was always an air of awkwardness between them.

Fortunately for Spinel, she always had the excuse of studying for finals to get her out of any situation if she was feeling uncomfortable around any of them.

However, there was one resident that she couldn’t use this excuse on, Lion. Spinel still got nervous around him. But he hadn’t done anything to really warrant her to be worried. Especially if their first encounter was anything to go by. Spinel could still remember when the big dog had tripped her only to start licking her face when she was down.

For the most part, Lion minded his own business, and Spinel was beginning to think that he was secretly a cat in a dog’s body. But his head never failed to perk up with interest whenever she walked by. He had that same recognition in his eye that Pearl did, if not more so. He seemed to know exactly who Spinel was. So why he was so friendly to her continued to be a mystery.

This whole time Spinel had been sleeping on the couch. There was talk of expanding Steven’s room to finally give the kid four walls. But that was going to happen in the spring and Spinel was hoping to be gone by the end of the school year. So she wasn’t about to request that they make a room for her too.

Besides, the couch was nice. It was soft, gave her a full view of everything, and she had a bunch of games nearby if she got bored.

The main downside was that it still felt very awkward to have the portrait of her momma hanging up, but she supposed that if she had a photo in her locket, then she wasn’t one to talk.

But seeing the picture was different than knowing it was there. So, it began to bug her a lot, no matter how much she tried to brush it off. 

This was evident on the night before finals. Spinel was stressed about tomorrow and could still see the portrait out of the corner of her eye.

She had managed a fitful sleep when she felt something wet on her hand. She narrowly avoided crying out when she shot awake. She turned to see that it was Lion, licking her hand.

“What have you come to wake me up?” she asked, exhaustion evident in her voice “That’s okay. It’s not like I was getting much sleep anyway.”

Lion then crawled up, onto the couch. “What the-!” Spinel whisper-shouted quietly, still aware of Steven sleeping above her, “You’re not supposed to-!”

Lion then proceeded to flop on top of her.

Spinel groaned. “Okay, we’re doing this now,” she muttered into his fur.

She was about to make a genuine effort to get the beast off of her, but she just couldn’t bring herself to. He was heavy, but a lot of his weight was on his paws, so it wasn’t hard to breath. He was soft, warm, and Spinel found herself copying the lion’s deep breathing.

With the steady rhythm of his heart beat, Spinel found herself relaxing, and that night, she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

  
  



	17. Chapter 17

Spinel woke up with Lion on top of her. She saw the other members of the household smiling amused at her from the kitchen where they were getting ready for the day.

Once he saw that she was awake, Lion got up and went off to go wherever it was he went while the rest of them were at school.

Spinel felt embarrassed at first (especially because it wouldn’t have surprised her if she needed to go through a whole lint roller to get his shedding off of her blanket). But she found that feeling fading when she forced herself to acknowledge that she probably had looked pretty silly. 

So, like the others, she laughed goodnaturedly and went about her morning routine.

\--------------------------------------------

Finals went by in a blur and before Spinel knew it, she was walking back to the house. Winter break had begun.

Garnet arrived a little after her. She greeted Spinel and said something about Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven visiting Vidalia.

As soon as Garnet had taken off her coat and scarf (but not her sunglasses), she got right to work putting up Christmas decorations. “Jeez louise,” Spinel thought to herself, “Does that woman ever take a break? Wait a minute...Christmas decorations?”

While Spinel was caught up in suddenly remembering that Christmas was a thing, Garnet spotted her eyeing the wreath she was putting on the door, “Oh, I’m sorry Spinel. I forgot to ask. Do you not celebrate Christmas?”

Spinel quickly shook her head, “No, no. I do celebrate it. I guess I’ve just been so caught up with everything that I forgot about what happens after finals.” Garnet nodded and went back to decorating.

Spinel did celebrate Christmas, but she hadn’t really  _ celebrated _ it in a while. Spinel nodded to herself, got up, and started helping Garnet with decorating.

It went by pretty quickly with the two of them working together, not to mention there weren’t many decorations to begin with. Just the wreath, some christmas lights hanging on the breakfast bar and over the couch, and a couple of other decorations here and there.

It was quaint, but Spinel liked it. Nothing too flashy that would end up over stimulating her senses.

They two of them sat down on the couch and admired their work in a comfortable silence. In the silence, Spinel began to wonder about presents. She didn’t exactly have a lot of cash. Funland had closed down for the winter season and it’s not like it paid that great in the first place.

Apparently she wasn’t worrying subtly enough because Garnet asked her what was wrong.

“Nothing,” she replied reflexively.

It was hard to read Garnet’s facial expressions because of her big sunglasses, but she’s pretty sure Garnet had raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

Spinel sighed, “I was just worrying- I mean wondering what the deal is with presents in this house.”

Garnet hummed, “Well, you are not expected to get anybody anything since you are not 18. But even then, that rule isn’t enforced. Amethyst recently turned 18 and I highly doubt that she plans on buying presents. She is too busy saving up money for college.”

“What does she want to do?” Spinel questioned curiously.

Garnet smiled at her, “Why don’t you go ask her.”

“Uhhh maybe later,” Spinel said quickly, still not really sure about befriending the lavender haired girl.

Garnet nodded understandingly and the two of them resumed their comfortable silence.

\--------------------------------------------

It was Christmas Day. Steven got up excitedly and went around to get the others up. Spinel groaned, but couldn’t bring herself to be too mad.

Soon enough, everybody sat in the living room and exchanged presents.

Garnet got a cat. Well, it was actually a picture of a one-eyed, calico kitten and Pearl said that Vidalia was currently holding onto the cat and that the two of them could come and pick her up once they had the proper supplies. Amethyst and Steven were smiling smugly at Garnet’s face in a way that said for itself that they’d been in on it too.

There were other presents exchanged, but Spinel wasn’t really paying attention to what everybody else got, because she was still getting over the fact that she also got presents.

There was one from Pearl and one from Garnet. Pearl had given her a phone case and charger. Spinel thought that it was a little weird, but Pearl’s gift suddenly made sense when she opened Garnet’s present to find a phone.

Spinel had lightly protested, not liking the idea of a lot of money being spent on her. But Garnet insisted that she would be able to call them if she was in trouble. So it was worth every penny.

\--------------------------------------------

It was Boxing Day and nobody was really getting anything done. But nobody seemed to mind either. Everybody was sitting in a comfortable silence and enjoying their gifts from yesterday.

It was picture perfect, especially when Garnet came from the kitchen and started handing everyone hot chocolates. Spinel muttered her thanks upon receiving her mug. Garnet sat down on the couch beside her, “You know, I’m happy that you’re here Spinel.”

Spinel's good mood was instantly ruined when she tried to look over at Garnet, but saw the portrait in the background. “You shouldn’t be,” Spinel muttered to herself.

Garnet and Pearl frowned. They had heard Spinel’s comment and also noticed that Spinel had glanced at the portrait.

“Why not?” Pearl asked, “And why do you keep glancing at Rose’s portrait? I’ve noticed you doing it since you got here. You always look...mad.” Pearl got that same look in her eye as she glanced between the portrait and Spinel. Like she was trying to place Spinel, but just couldn’t figure out where she’d seen her face.

Spinel was growing aggravated. All the years of past anger were coming back to bite her. “Well it’s not like I like her too much,” she snapped venomously.

Everybody turned to stare at her incredulously as the tension began to build. Garnet was clearly trying to remain calm and reasonable, “Why? Did you know her?”

“No!” Spinel said louder than was necessary. “Or at least I thought I did!” her mind finished.

Spinel gripped her locket tightly.

Pearl was getting agitated as well, “Then how can you say that you don’t like her?!”

Spinel shot up from the couch to face Pearl.“Because she left me!” Spinel yelled, ripping her locket off and slamming it to the ground in the heat of the moment.

The locket burst open to reveal the old photo of Pink. Pearl put her hands over her mouth, automatically recognizing it. Pearl looked up from the photo and that look in her eye vanished and was replaced with one of recognition. “Spinel,” she whispered.

Spinel immediately regretted doing that, but the damage had already been done. Having nothing left to lose, Spinel finally spoke the truth, “I’m her daughter.”

  
  



	18. Chapter 18

“It can’t be,” was all Pearl could think. But given the evidence to the contrary that had just come in the form of an angry seventeen year old girl. It did appear that it could be and it was.

Pearl wanted to kick herself. She had known as soon as she had set her eyes on Spinel that she had recognized her from somewhere. She just hadn’t been able to figure out where.

But now, it seemed so obvious. She had seen Spinel only a handful of times when the young girl was a toddler. It was so long ago, but she still had that pink hair and now had her mom’s pink eyes. She wasn’t sure where those mysterious scars on her cheeks had come from. They didn’t at all look like they would belong on the happy little girl she had once known.

Pearl approached the broken pieces of the locket and picked up the old photo. It had been so long since she’d seen Rose in her old appearance. It was so odd and uncanny.

Steven came up beside her and Pearl knew that she’d have a lot of explaining to do and then probably send Steven to therapy after this.

The boy in question looked at the photo in confusion, “Wait...this doesn’t even look anything like Mom.”

Spinel remained silent and just looked at the ground. Pearl knew that it was now up to her to talk, so she began, “Steven, you’re mom didn’t always look like how she does in the portrait. She had changed her appearance before she came to Beach City.”

Everybody was looking at Pearl now, silently asking for answers.

Pearl sighed, “I’ll start at the beginning. Rose was raised by three mothers: White, Yellow, and Blue. She was known as Pink back then. But she was unhappy and never felt like she truly belonged. Then, in college, she became pregnant and had a daughter.”

Everybody flinched in Spinel’s direction, but the girl just continued to stare at the floor, unresponsive.

“She made me promise not to tell anybody. So I didn’t,” Pearl continued, “Then she had changed her appearance to what she looks like in the portrait and met your dad. She fell in love with him and they had you sometime later.”

“So Dad didn’t know about Spinel?” Steven asked.

“No. She began a double life. She was afraid of Greg finding out about her mothers and her mothers finding out about Greg. But then one day, she decided that she wanted to move to Beach City.”

“So she left me in foster care,” Spinel piped up.

“Yes,” Pearl nodded solemnly, “And she came here to live with Garnet and me, and you already know what happened after that.”

Pearl finally brought herself to look at Spinel, “I’m so sorry. I thought she had left you with your grandmothers. You had always seemed so happy there, so I thought that it might have been for the best.”

“Well...you’re probably right! I was happy there, but I don’t even know where they could be!”

“I could try to get in contact with them, but I don’t think that they’d be too happy to hear from me,” Pearl offered.

Spinel still looked angry.

“I’m sorry. I was just...trying to be a good friend.”

Maybe it was Pearl’s imagination, but when Spinel met her gaze, she could have sworn she saw a flicker of understanding in Spinel’s own magenta eyes.

\--------------------------------------------

Pearl was silent now. Spinel supposed that it was now her turn to complete the story. So she told them everything.

She told them about how she had waited for years until she discovered Rose’s photo in a newspaper, where she found out that she had a brother. But she didn’t get the chance to see where he might be living before she...lost the newspaper. So she made it her life’s mission to track Steven down.

“What were you planning on doing when you got here?” Steven asked warily.

“I’m not sure,” Spinel admitted, “I was so focused on finding you that when I actually did, I had no idea what to do. But then you were so  _ nice _ to me. It was bizarre. I was worried that you knew who I was and that you being nice was a trick. Which eventually led to me punching you in the face.”

“Oh,” Steven just said dumbly. Amethyst tensed at his side, but seemed to relax when Spinel continued.

“But then it started to become more and more clear to me that you didn’t know. So I began to think that maybe I should just let everything be. Keep quiet, graduate, and you’d never have to deal with me again.” Spinel looked down at the broken pieces of her locket, “But that didn’t happen.”

Then Spinel braced herself. For what, she wasn’t quite sure. Blame, maybe? Rejection? This was all her fault...wasn’t it?

“Spinel,” Garnet spoke, “I’m so sorry that that happened to you.”

“I promise, I’ll get in touch with your grandmothers,” Pearl told her.

Steven and Amethyst remained silent.

Spinel’s ears were ringing from the sheer amount of thoughts flying through her head, “Why aren’t they mad?” “Why aren’t they yelling at me?” “They’re not supposed to be nice!”

“What the hell is wrong with all of you?!” she snapped. When she was met with only blank stares, she continued almost hysterically, “I’ve now ruined your perfect perception of Momma. Everytime you look at me, you know that she was bad. I’m bad, not good at all!

“You should hate me!” Spinel yelled. “Why don’t you hate me?” she asked suddenly quiet, sounding lost and confused.

There was silence, nobody was sure how to respond. Spinel couldn’t stand it anymore, so she ran. 

She didn’t hear what everybody behind her said, all she could hear were the butterflies. They were swirling around her in swarms.

At first, there were a few that sounded an awful lot like Garnet, telling her that running away won't solve anything. But they were quickly drowned out by a whole swarm with one message. “They hate you. They hate you. They were just putting on an act. They will leave you.”

Then a particularly nasty swarm came by, “Ha! Your momma was so terrible and yet you’re acting just like her! Running away! I guess the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Spinel said running faster, putting her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block out the thoughts.

She ran and ran until her legs couldn’t take it anymore and she was forced to slow down.

Gasping for breath, Spinel looked around at her surroundings. She hadn’t yet familiarized herself with Beach City’s layout and it quickly dawned on her that she was completely lost.

Spinel suddenly wished that she had brought her new phone with her, not that she knew how to use that shiny new gizmo yet. But she probably would have been able to figure it out.

Spinel was becoming overwhelmed again, but was miraculously pulled from her downward spiral by a melody. It was nice sounding, the calming strumming of guitar strings. Having nothing to lose, Spinel followed the melody to its source.

She found herself at a carwash. A man who was balding at the top of his head, but had extremely long hair tumbling down his back was sitting in the back of a van with the doors open playing on a guitar.

She knew who he was. She still remembered him from the principal's office. Spinel was about to back away, but he looked up before she could. Although he looked a bit surprised, he smiled warmly, though Spinel could see a hint of concern in his eyes.

He got up to approach her and Spinel had half a mind to run away again, but she just couldn’t bring herself to.

“You don’t want to be like your momma?” a butterfly asked rhetorically, “Then stop running away from things you don’t want to deal with.”

So Spinel forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and meet Greg Universe halfway.

  
  



	19. Chapter 19

“Hey, are you okay? Are you lost?” Mr. Universe asked.

“No and yes,” Spinel thought to herself. But she ended up flipping those two answers around when she responded. “Oh, I’m fine. I know where I am,” she answered, “Just went for a walk and heard your music. It’s really nice.”

For some reason, Mr. Universe didn’t seem to buy that first part. And for some reason he informed her that the car wash had a bathroom inside and that she might want to go in there for a moment.

Spinel was confused, but went along with it. When she entered the bathroom and looked in the mirror, she realized why he’d thought she might want to take a moment in there. Her face was a mess. Her eyes were puffy and the tears on her face were further emphasised by her scars.

Spinel quickly cleaned up before coming back out. “Thanks,” she said with a hand on the back of her neck, eyes down on the ground.

“You’re welcome,” Mr. Universe said while sitting down on an upside down crate. He gestured for Spinel to do the same on one that was across from him. When she did, he began, “Listen, is everything okay? I’d heard that you’re staying with Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven? Did something happen?”

“Why is he being nice to me too? Could this be another act?” her mind asked. But now that she had taken the breather in the bathroom, she was thinking a lot more rationally, so she shooed the thought away.

“I-um…” she stuttered, it suddenly became apparent to her that she didn’t even know how to start.

The real question was: Should she tell the truth? She knew she probably should, he had the right to know. Besides, everybody that she had just run away from probably hated her. What was one more person?

“I have something to tell you,” she admitted. Mr. Universe looked confused, but didn’t try to stop her. “I’m Pink, er Rose’s daughter,” she spat out quickly.

Once she got those words out, the rest of it came a lot more easily. She told him everything. How she had been left behind, how she’d tracked down Steven, and now how she’d just told the others everything.

Mr. Universe listened silently with an expression that she couldn’t read.

“And now here I am,” Spinel finished when she got to the present.

Greg was quiet for a little while. Then he spoke, “I’m so sorry that that happened to you.”

Spinel was bewildered, “Why does everybody keep saying stuff like that?”

Greg mirrored her confused look, “Because that was a bad thing that happened, and it happened to you.”

“I guess.”

There was an awkward silence. Spinel knew that she had a question for him and the silence was eating away at her, causing her to blurt out, “Do you hate her now?”

Mr. Universe was silent again and she could see that he was carefully considering the question. “Kind of. I’m definitely upset, but she’s gone now. All I have are the memories. I don’t want to downplay what you’ve said. But I’ll still miss her everyday, I’m just sad that she never told me about you. She always had a secretive past, so I guess I should have expected something or  _ someone _ to show up from it.”

Spinel’s mind had hung onto one part he’d said, “Secretive past? Why were you so okay with her having a secretive past? You two got married didn’t you?”

Mr. Universe shrugged, “Well, I didn’t tell her everything either. I wasn’t always Mr. Universe. I was once Gregory DeMayo.”

“Seriously?!” Spinel snickered. Mr. Universe rolled his eyes and nodded, but didn’t seem to mind. “I knew that she had done some stuff that she wasn’t proud of, but I’m sorry that leaving you was one of those things.”

Spinel began to relax on her crate. Who knew that talking about a bad thing could be so helpful? “Garnet,” a butterfly pointed out to her.

Spinel ignored it and told Mr. Universe, “It’s okay...well, I mean, it’s not  _ okay _ , but thanks for understanding.” She thought to herself for a moment, “But uh? Can I ask, why aren’t you more sad? I had expected you to be a lot less put together.”

“Well, it’s been a while since she passed. I’ll still miss her, but I still have plenty of things. She was a part of my world but she wasn’t my whole world. I still have friends, music, Steven.” Greg paused, worried that he had upset her by saying her halfbrother’s name.

Spinel waved a hand, “It’s okay. I’ve already come to terms with that part.”

They sat in a much more comfortable silence and Spinel thought to herself. For a while, revenge was her whole world, but now the thought of allowing her anger and hurt to fuel her more just sounded exhausting. She was actually pretty tired, in general, of this cycle of hurt that she’d been in for about eleven years now. It would feel unnatural to give it up since it had been such a large part of her for so long, but maybe it was for the best. But then who would she be without it?

“Well, you’d be Spinel, wouldn’t you?”

Spinel looked up at Mr. Universe and realized that she’d been talking out loud. What was it with the Universes and making her confess her thoughts? He brought up a valid point nonetheless.

“I’m Spinel,” she thought to herself.

She liked the sound of it, so she tried speaking it, “I’m Spinel. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Universe.”

The man in question smiled kindly at her, “It’s nice to meet you too, but you can just call me Greg.”

“Whatever you say Mr. Greg.”

Greg rolled his eyes and picked up his guitar.

“Ya know, you’re really good at playing,” Spinel commented.

“Thanks. Do you play any instruments?”

“Uhhh. Not really,” Spinel rubbed the back of her neck, “I’ve always wanted to learn, but the closest thing I’ve got is banging random keys on the piano as a kid.”

Mr. Greg seemed to look at her analyzingly. “You know, I think I know the best instrument that’ll suit you. I was cleaning out my storage unit and found something. Let me go get it.” He went over to the back of his van and pulled out something heavy and rectangular. He lugged it back over to Spinel and opened the case to reveal...uhh...she didn’t really know what it was.

“What is it?” Spinel asked.

“It’s an accordion. Here, I’ll show you how it works.”

An accordion huh? The only ones that she had seen were from the black and white cartoons, but those ones were cylindrical and didn’t have piano keys.

Spinel was doubtful of the strange looking instrument until Mr. Greg began playing a few notes on it. It made the oddest, yet most beautiful sound. She had no idea an instrument could make that noise.

Spinel looked at him with stars in her eyes after he’d only played a few notes, “Oh. My. Stars. Please teach me how to play that thing!” Spinel then realized what she was asking. “That is uh if you’re okay with that. I know that you may not like the sight of me and I-”

“Hey, hey, hey- it’s okay. I’d be more than happy to teach you,” Mr. Greg assured.

“How could you tell that I’d like it?” Spinel asked curiously.

Mr. Greg tried to shrug casually, but she could see the pride in his eyes, “What can I say? I’ve just got a knack for knowing what music people’ll like.”

Spinel rolled her eyes and was just about to take the accordion from Mr. Greg to try her own hand at it when Steven suddenly came running from around the bend.

“Dad! I need your help to find-!” Steven stopped when he laid eyes on his halfsister, “Spinel.”

There was an air of tension that Greg did his best to try and defuse, “Hey Steven, don’t worry. Spinel’s just fine...as you can probably see.”

“Spinel, we’ve been looking all around for you,” Steven told her, keeping his eyes trained on her like he was afraid she was just going to run away again (which, to be fair, was a valid concern). Spinel did feel embarrassed at that and muttered an apology. Steven texted the others to let them know that Spinel was fine.

Although Spinel knew that she should probably go back, she was slightly torn. But Greg assured her that the accordion would still be there the next time that she stopped by.

So Steven and Spinel began their trek back.

There was another air of awkward silence, it seemed to be a theme for that day. Steven broke it a couple minutes into the walk. “Sooooo,” he tried to start. Spinel raised an eyebrow at his lame attempt to start a conversation.

Steven chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeah, you’re right. This is awkward.”

Spinel sighed and knew that she was going to have to say something, “Listen, Steven. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just- I messed up. I messed up bad with you,” she sighed again and kicked a pebble on the street as they walked, “I just wish I could start from scratch.”

“Well,” Steven paused to think, “Why don’t we?”

“Huh?” Spinel looked at him, confused.

Steven stopped walking and turned, forcing her to stop walking and face him too. Then Steven held out his hand, “Hello, I’m Steven.”

Seeing where he was going with this, Spinel couldn’t help but roll her eyes and yet go along with it. She shook his hand, “Hey there, I’m Spinel...I’m your sister.”

“Hi...I’m glad I met you,” he admitted.

“Same here.”

They both looked down and realized that they hadn’t stopped shaking hands. The two of them chuckled and Spinel offered him her other hand, and they walked back to the beach house hand in hand.

  
  



	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? A lighthearted chapter? I didn’t think it was possible!

When she and Steven got back to the house Spinel apologized for running off. She managed to get off easy by promising to never do something like that again. 

In the meantime, everybody had agreed to store the portrait and the picture that had been in Spinel’s locket in Greg’s storage unit for the time being.

Meanwhile, Pearl was still trying to get in touch with Spinel’s grandmothers, but they were really secretive. They never went on the news for interviews, there’s no contact information. Spinel supposed that it made sense, or else she would have seen them on the news and recognized them a long time ago.

Pearl had also been helpful in that she’d been the one to hand Spinel the pieces of her locket. Upon further inspection, the locket wasn’t beyond repair. It had plenty of large chunks that could be put back together with a special glue. It would be a pain to repair but Spinel wanted to try.

Around two weeks had passed since Spinel had finally told the truth and winter break was coming to a close.

Spinel, Garnet, and Pearl had been sitting around in the kitchen and were talking about what Spinel wanted to do in the future. “Well, I’ve always wanted to go back to Empire City. Even if I don’t see my grandmas, it would be nice to look around and see how much everything’s changed,” Spinel admitted, “It would be a pain to take so many buses though.”

That’s how the subject of driving got brought up and Spinel admitted to the other two that she never learned how to drive.

Pearl hummed, “Well, I could teach you, and there’s a DMV nearby where you’d be able to get your license...i-if you want, that is.”

Spinel looked silently at Pearl, weighing the options in her head, “Okay, sure. I’d like that.” And that’s how Spinel began driving lessons with Pearl. 

If she was being entirely honest, Spinel thought it would be a lot harder. But she got the hang of it within only a few days. Pearl commented that Spinel was a very fast learner, and soon enough, Pearl trusted Spinel to cruise the two of them down an empty road while they talked.

Somehow the conversation turned to when Spinel was younger. Pearl mentioned how she had only seen Spinel a handful of times when she was a toddler but apparently she got up to a lot of shenanigans in the garden.

Pearl told her about the puppet shows the younger Spinel would put on, gymnastics, games of tag and hide-and-go-seek.

Spinel chuckled, vaguely recalling the memories Pearl was describing, “Yeah, those were pretty fun times.” This didn’t have the intended effect though and Pearl looked guilty again, “I’m really sorr-”

Spinel exhaled through her nose. “Listen,” she cut Pearl off, “you didn’t do anything wrong. You thought that I had been left with my grandmas. You couldn’t have controlled her actions anyway. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t do anything wrong, and so I’m not about to turn around and say that you did something wrong and put you through that too.”

Pearl was silent for a moment at those wise words. Once she had fully processed them, she smiled kindly and nodded her head. “Has anybody told you that you’re really mature for your age?” she asked.

“No, not really- Oh hey! That cloud looks like a butt!” Spinel snickered.

Pearl rolled her eyes, “Now honestly Spinel- Wait. It does look like a butt!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehe butt


	21. Chapter 21

Spinel hated her big mouth. If only she had kept quiet. Then she wouldn’t be in this situation! But now there was no getting out of it. So she approached the water, accepting her fate.

\--------------------------------------------

It was an one unusually hot spring day, Spinel had been hunched over the coffee table.

She had just acquired some special glue that was designed for jewelry and was finishing glueing together two pieces. She wished that she could glue more pieces at a time, but she’d found out the hard way that if she tried to glue a second piece before the first one’s glue had dried, then the first one would get displaced. So she was just going to have to settle for the slow process of glueing one piece at a time.

Once Spinel was satisfied with the placement, she finally set down the two pieces so that the glue could dry.

As she stretched her back, Spinel heard “Nice work.” from beside her. “AH!” Spinel jumped as she realized that Garnet was sitting beside her on the couch. Once she caught her breath Spinel eyed her former counselor suspiciously, “How long have you been sitting there?”

Garnet didn’t answer and instead elected to let Spinel know that she was going to swim in the ocean because of the heat, “Care to join me?”

“Nah. I’m fine,” Spinel said with a wave of her hand, “Sides, I’d sink like a stone if I got too deep. I’d prefer to graduate high school before I kick the bucket.”

Once those words left her mouth, Spinel felt Garnet’s gaze on her. She wasn’t sure if she’d said something wrong, but before she could ask, Garnet spoke, “You can’t swim?”   
  


Spinel immediately realized her mistake and tried to laugh it off, “Not really. Never spent too much time around the water. So I never really needed to learn.” Spinel tried to get up off the couch and make her escape but Garnet put a hand in front of her.

“Swimming is a very important skill you know.”

“Uh, huh. Yeah, sure. Very important. Anywho, ya know I just remembered that I got a lot of homework left to do for uhhhh,” Spinel cursed her brain as the names of all of her classes escaped her.

“I’m going to teach you how to swim,” Garnet told her matter of factly. 

Spinel had a handamind to protest but she couldn’t bring herself to waste the energy. She knew it would be futile. Once Garnet made up her mind about something like this, there was no changing it.

So after making a quick purchase in town of a bathing suit for Spinel, they went right to the ocean outside the house.

Spinel hated her big mouth. If only she had kept quiet. Then she wouldn’t be in this situation! But now there was no getting out of it. So she approached the water, accepting her fate.

It’s not that Spinel didn’t like the ocean, it’s just that...well okay she didn’t like the ocean. Some might consider swimming to be sort of like gymnastics, but in the water. Personally, Spinel couldn’t see the similarities. Gymnastics on land allowed you to have much more power over yourself. A slight current wasn’t there to knock her over. And, you know, she could breath.

Spinel resisted the urge to hiss at the waves like a cat as they got close enough for the water to wash over her feet.

“I don’t know about this,” she told Garnet.

“It’ll be okay, I’m a really good swimmer. If you start drowning, I’ll be able to rescue you.”

“How reassuring,” Spinel responded dryly.

They stayed in the shallower part and Garnet tried to have Spinel float on her back. This turned out to be incredibly difficult. She just couldn’t seem to relax and didn’t like that the waves could move her around on their own accord. Garnet kept her hand slightly underneath the small of Spinel’s back, which was slightly reassuring.

After some repetition, she was starting to get the hang of it when something brushed up against her leg. Spinel automatically freaked out and flailed in the water until her foot hit the bottom and she remembered how shallow the water was. She sheepishly stood up and saw that Garnet was holding a piece of seaweed, which was what probably had brushed up against her leg.

“Let’s take a break,” Garnet suggested, throwing the seaweed onto the sand.

“Wait, no,” Spinel objected, “I uhhh, I almost had it. Can we try again?”

Garnet nodded and without any stray seaweed coming around to give her a heart attack, Spinel was getting the hang of floating on her back. So Garnet suggested that they begin kicking.

“Will you still have your hand underneath me?”

Garnet nodded. So Spinel began kicking parallel to the beach. 

Because of the sun above, she had to close her eyes, so she couldn’t see Garnet. “Is your hand still underneath me?” she asked.

“Yes,” Spinel heard in response. Garnet sounded strangely far away, but that was probably just because her ears were in the water.   
  


Spinel was starting to feel more comfortable in the water and started kicking more powerfully and her arms starting small movements, instinctively wanting to help her along.

Spinel opened her eyes to look over at Garnet, but nobody was there. Panicked, Spinel stood up, the water was now chest deep instead of waist deep, and looked around. Her search didn’t take that long. She quickly spotted Garnet standing on the shore, waving to her.

Annoyed, Spinel kicked back to shore. “You were never there to catch me, were you?” she asked rhetorically.

“I was there for a little while, but then it seemed like you knew what you were doing. You can manage without me,” Garnet assured.

The metaphor was not lost on Spinel and she had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at the woman’s tendency to turn everything into a teaching moment.

“I guess so,” Spinel admitted, “Anywho, now that I got the hang of my feet. How about you teach me how to use my arms.”

Garnet nodded and the two swam out further, but this time Spinel knew she’d have a say in where the water took her.

  
  



	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duskfern, this one’s for you.

Spinel had just finished gluing another piece of her locket. She set down the charm and made a mental note to come back to it later.

Suddenly, she heard laughter and snickering from above her. She had to take a moment to tamp down the mental butterflies that were telling her that the laughter was directed at her. But once she did, she turned her head up and asked, “What’s so funny?”

Steven peaked from over the ledge, down at her, still getting over his giggles, “Oh hey Spinel. Come on up here. I’ve got something really funny to show you.”

Spinel made her way up the stairs and Steven showed her a funny video on his phone. Spinel immediately couldn’t help but laugh at the hilariousness, “Wow this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Everybody should see it. It’s hysterical!”

“I know right,” Steven said between bits of laughter, “You should look up their TubeTube channel on your phone. I think you’d like their other videos.”

Although she knew that he had good intentions, Spinel immediately felt a rush of shame, “I uh. I don’t know.”

Steven was confused by her sudden change of mood, “What do you mean?”

Spinel took a deep breath and resisted the urge to make excuses. “I don't know how to use my phone other than to make phone calls,” she forced herself to admit, “New technology and me don’t mix too well.”

And that’s how Spinel ended up spending the afternoon with her brother teaching her how to use all the different apps on her phone. “Aren’t I supposed to be the one who teaches you to do stuff?” she asked once their lesson was wrapping up.

“Everybody still has stuff to learn,” Steven assured. He got up and stretched, “Anywho, what do you know about video games?”

Spinel was confused, “Not a whole lot.”

“Then come on,” Steven gestured to the TV and Spinel saw where this was going, “This is the next step in your technology lesson. I want to teach you.”

“Alright,” Spinel said warily.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fun.”

\--------------------------------------------

“You’re right this is fun,” Spinel cackled as she killed Steven once more in Lonely Blade.

“How did you get so good at this so quickly?!” Steven asked in amazement and frustration, mashing the buttons harder on his controller. Spinel had started out rough, but she was a fast learner and quickly got the hang of it. Now it was quite apparent that she had surpassed Steven.

“ _ Everybody still has stuff to learn _ ,” Spinel replied in a sickly sweet voice.

Steven turned to glare at her, but when he took his eyes off the screen it gave Spinel the opening she needed and the O.K. sign was flashing at him when he turned back to the T.V. Steven turned back to glare at Spinel harder, but she didn’t seem to mind as she fell back laughing.

Steven sighed and flopped back next to her. “I don’t suppose that you’d consider going easy on me,” he asked.

Spinel, finally getting over her giggles, replied, “Not a chance.”

Steven rolled his eyes at her, he wasn’t that surprised, and sat up. Seeing his frustrated face, Spinel threw him a bone. “Hey, hey, you’re not that bad,” she told him as she sat up too, “You just need to loosen up. Think of your sword like an extension of yourself, or whatever it was that Pearl told us during the fall play.”

Steven tried to apply her advice in the next match and did start doing a bit better, but then he noticed that he was doing too well. Spinel was making far too many mistakes. Before he knew it, he’d won the match. He turned back to Spinel before she could say anything, “You threw the match didn’t you?”

Spinel had the decency to look sheepish at having been caught, “Weeeeell it was either that or deal with you looking disappointed all the time.”

Steven rolled his eyes at her again, but appreciated the gesture so he caught her off guard by hugging her. Spinel squeaked in surprise. Steven grinned to himself, “Haha. You’ve fallen right into my trap.”

Spinel was surprised at first, but then quickly spotted her opportunity. “I appreciate the thought an’ all,” she told her little brother, “but...you’ve just fallen right into  _ my _ trap.” Spinel quickly moved one of her arms to put him in a headlock, and used the other to give him a noogie. She laughed as Steven tried to escape.

He finally managed to break free mostly because Spinel couldn’t maintain her grip because she was laughing too hard. Steven huffed at her, slightly red in the face as Spinel tried to apologize through her laughter.

\--------------------------------------------

Steven eventually found it in himself to forgive her and that evening the two of them headed over to the carwash for Spinel’s first lesson on the accordion.

She was only learning the basics that day, but even so, Spinel proved to also be a quick study in the music department as well. Greg walked her through the basics and Steven gave her advice and encouragement along the way. Within an hour or two, she was getting the hang of it and could play a decent, if simple, tune. Steven joined in with his ukulele. Then Greg added in his guitar. 

Music filled the carwash that day and they played until the sun went down.

  
  



	23. Chapter 23

Spinel glued two more pieces of her locket together and had set it down to dry when Amethyst came out of her room and into the kitchen to get a snack, looking very tired.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Spinel asked, not meaning to sound as concerned as she did.

“Colleges are a pain,” Amethyst responded, “I’ve finally narrowed down my choices to two, but Delmarva University is still deciding whether or not it’s going to give me some extra financial aid. If it doesn’t get back to me by next week, then I’m going with Delmarva State.”

While Spinel was nodding her head in sympathy, she remembered a few months ago back, a bit before Christmas. Garnet had encouraged her to ask Amethyst what she wanted to do in college. “Uhh. What’s gonna be your major?”

“Education and Psychology.”

“Ohhh.”

“I want to be a counselor. What about you? What do you want to do?”

“What? Am I your practice student to counsel?” Spinel asked jokingly.

Amethyst sat down on the couch next to Spinel and straightened out her posture. “Yes. Now tell me what are your interests. What makes you say,  _ “I’m gonna go out there and make the world a better place? _ ” Amethyst asked in the most condescending teacher voice possible.

Spinel laughed, “Oh, well, I was planning on taking a gap year...and wasn’t planning on going to college in general.”

Amethyst snickered, “And then?”

“Bold of you to assume I’ve thought that far ahead,” Spinel answered, “But in all honesty, I kinda just assumed that I’d hit the road and travel around. I’d do that whole ‘Finding Myself Journey.’ But I did so much traveling around when I was moving foster homes. I don’t really want that anymore, but I had never bothered to come up with a Plan B.” Spinel thought for a moment, “So far, Plan B is to decide during the gap year.”

Amethyst nodded, “Glad to hear you’ve thought everything out so thoroughly.” Spinel rolled her eyes and lightly punched Amethyst in the arm. The other girl didn't seem to mind and just laughed, “Why haven’t we talked more? You’ve been here for how many months now?”

Spinel shrugged, “First impressions are everything and I made a bad one. Sorry about that by the way.”

“What are you talki- Oh that’s right!” The memory of their first interaction during the first day of school came back to Amethyst, “Hmmmm, how can you make it up to me?”

“Wait, I don’t think I should have to if you forgot about-”

“Nope, you have to make it up to me,” Amethyst cut her off, “Let’s see, what chores can I make you do for me?” After some deliberation, she said, “You’ll have to deliver my prom tux to the dry cleaners and pick it up too.”

Spinel felt like she was going to sprain her eyes at how much she was rolling them at the other girl, “All right...wait  _ prom _ tux.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh right,” Spinel snapped her fingers, “I forgot that that was happening.”

“You forgot about prom?”

“Had other stuff going on. Besides, it's not really my scene.”

“No. You have to go,” Amethyst protested, “It’s a milestone in every teenager’s life!”

Spinel was honestly impartial to prom. She was just feeling stubborn, “Nope.” She folded her arms across her chest to emphasize her point.

“Yes, you do, cause I’m changing my favor. You have to go to prom now.”

“Come on, I don’t even have anything fancy enough to wear.”

\--------------------------------------------

And that’s how Spinel found herself in a department store.

Spinel immediately headed to the clearance rack. However, she didn’t see anything that she liked. When she told Amethyst as much and tried to use this as an excuse to leave, Amethyst merely shrugged and suggested that they go look at the stuff on the shelves.

Spinel became visibly nervous, “I don’t know about that.”

There was a look of understanding in Amethyst’s eye when she said, “Garnet and Pearl gave us money, remember? I don’t think that they’d give us more money than they were okay with us spending. Don’t worry.”

Spinel was still visibly worried.

Amethyst sighed, although she didn’t sound too mad, “It’s okay. I get it.”

“Get what?” Spinel questioned, cocking her head to the side.

“The whole ‘having to be careful about spending too much money’ thing. I was in foster care too ya know.”

“I wonder how you ended up there,” Spinel asked quietly to herself.

“I could tell you if you really want to know,” Amethyst answered.

Spinel, realizing that she had been heard, automatically tried to backpedal, “Oh, thanks okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Amethyst chuckled, “I don't like making a big deal about it, but I don’t mind talking about it.”

As much as Spinel liked to mind her own business, she couldn’t deny that she was curious. So she nodded, silently asking for her to explain.

So Amethyst told her about how she had a bunch of older siblings who grew up and went off to the military before she was born. Then, a few days after she came into the world, her mother just disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to her. Amethyst was found, put into foster care, and eventually was fostered by Pearl who adopted her.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is...I know what it’s like to be left behind,” she told Spinel.

Spinel nodded, dumbly, unsure of what to say, but still grateful that Amethyst shared with her. Amethyst smiled in silent understanding and the two of them went back to picking out the outfit.

Spinel knew that she wanted something simple, so they just went with some nice dress pants and shoes, with a white button up. However, it was still missing something.

She figured out what it was when they reached a shelf of suspenders. Spinel couldn’t pass up the opportunity. She and Amethyst laughed at all the crazy colors and designs, and Spinel eventually went with a pair of pink suspenders that went nicely with her hair and contrasted her black and white outfit.

“Are you ready?’ Amethyst asked a couple weeks later when they were both dressed for prom.

“Yeah,” Spinel replied and was pleasantly surprised to find that she meant it.

\--------------------------------------------

Another pleasant surprise, Spinel found that prom wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be.

She tried to stick close to Amethyst, as she was starting to become painfully aware of how little she tried to make friends that year. But it wasn’t so bad. She got to dance with Amethyst and her friends.

During the dancing Spinel used her flexibility to her advantage, although she couldn’t do too much without risking tearing her suit. 

After a while, she realized that others were staring at her, and Spinel was embarrassed until Amethyst yelled over the loud music that that was so cool. Everybody else who had been staring nodded or shouted in agreement with Amethyst and resumed their dancing.

“HOW DO YOU DO THAT?!” Amethyst tried her best to ask over the loud music.

“I’M DOUBLE JOINTED!” Spinel did her best to yell back.

“WHAT?!”

  
“I’M DOUBLE JOINTED!”

  
“REALLY?! WHAT’S THAT?”

“IT’S-,” Spinel cut herself off, realizing that she shouldn’t try to explain if she wanted her vocal chords to be intact by the end of the night, “NEVERMIND!”

Amethyst shrugged, “WHATEVER, IT LOOKS COOL!!!”

\--------------------------------------------

They came home late at night to find Pearl sitting on the couch, clearly waiting for them. Amethyst tried to start, “Hey P. Look, I know you said to be home by midnight, but come on. What’s an extra hour...or four?”

Pearl just shook her head, “No, it’s not about that. Although I can’t say that I’m happy- '' Pearl shook her head and opened her mouth to say whatever it was she was going to say.

Then Spinel interrupted, “Wait, where’s Steven?”

“Yeah I was wondering that too?” Amethyst agreed.

“He’s asleep in my room,” Pearl answered, “But Spinel, I have something to tell you.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?” Spinel groaned. She could already feel her eyelids drooping.

“I got in touch with your grandmothers.”

With those seven words, Spinel’s eyes shot back open and she knew that sleep wouldn’t be coming for her that night.

  
  



	24. Chapter 24

Spinel was nervous and daunted as she approached the big mansion. Pearl would be waiting for her in the car, and although Spinel was tempted to change her mind and ask Pearl to come in with her, she knew that she wanted to go in alone. This was her challenge to overcome.

After prom night “The Diamonds,” as Pearl had called them, were suspicious but had agreed to meet with the girl that she claimed was their long lost granddaughter. Now here she was in Empire City, about to see them for the first time in a little less than twelve years.

She tentatively knocked on the door, which opened to reveal a bored looking maid with short yellow hair. She looked Spinel up and down, unimpressed, and said to follow her to the living room, “The Diamonds are waiting for you in there.”

As she walked, Spinel recognized so much and yet so little. Everything felt like a memory from a dream.

Spinel entered the living room and three tall women turned their heads towards her. There was silence as one pair of eyes and three pairs of eyes blinked disbelievingly at each other. None of them could bring themselves to believe that this runion was really happening. Until Spinel couldn’t stand the silence for a second longer, “Gran, Grandma, Grandmother, I’m home.”

“Spinel!” they cried out in unison and all at one the three women rushed forward to hug their granddaughter.

Spinel was completely engulfed in their arms. Her face was squished uncomfortably against their chests and she was pretty sure that if they hugged any tighter, they’d crush her ribs. Yet, there was nowhere else she’d rather be.

Spinel felt joyous tears well up in her eyes as she settled into the embrace and did her best to hug the three women back all at once.

“We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again!”

“Oh, Spinel!”

“I can’t believe you’re back!”

Once the four of them calmed down and reluctantly pulled away from the embrace, they began exchanging stories. 

“We had come back from a business trip and found you and Pink missing!” White explained.

“We had assumed that you would be with Pink, so when we couldn’t find her, we didn’t think we would ever find you,” Blue said.

“That is, until my assistant told us that a former employee of ours called claiming to have found you,” Yellow added, “We didn’t believe her at first. We thought that it was too good to be true.”

“But it really is you!” Blue said while holding Spinel’s face in her hands like she was afraid Spinel was just a maroge.

Then Spinel told them about how she was put into foster care, found out about the death of her mother through the newspaper, and tracked down her half brother. 

At the mention of Steven, all of the Diamonds looked at eachother. They clearly wanted to know about this long lost grandson of theirs, but a silent look exchanged between the three of them clearly said that they’d open that can of worms on another day.

Spinel continued telling them about how she eventually came to live under the same roof as Steven and how she had found that everybody there was really nice and treated her well.

“So now here I am,” Spinel finished once she got to the present.

There was an awkward silence, as nobody was sure what to do next. It was broken by Blue, who clapped her hands together suddenly, “Oh, I know. How about we give you a tour. So you can re-familiarize yourself with the place.”

“Sure, I’d like that,” Spinel smiled.

So they walked and reminisced about the different locations. Everything was so similar and yet so different than how Spinel remembered her childhood home. The final stop on their trip was Spinel’s old bedroom. She could hear her grandmother saying that they forced themself to give up most of it, but they just couldn’t bring themselves to completely repurpose the room.

“I guess, we always had it in the back of our heads that you’d return,” White admitted.

“And you have,” Blue smiled.

Spinel walked in and looked around silently. It was rather blank. All of her old toys and books were gone. But the bed, chair, and desk were still there along with some irremovable paint stains and dents in the wood that Spinel recalled were from a series of unrelated incidents caused by her five year old self because it had seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Even if they had removed the larger furniture, they wouldn’t have been able to take away the  _ Spinel _ from the room. There were just too many memories and two many dents or stains with funny stories behind them that made the room Spinel’s own.

Spinel sat down on the bed and couldn’t help but wonder how the room would have changed if she’d stayed. A wave of sadness suddenly hit her. “Why me?” she asked, mourning the childhood that she could have had.

The Diamonds understood what she was feeling with those two words and were there immediately.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You simply had a lot of bad luck,” White assured.

“We’re sorry too,” Yellow added.

Blue continued, “We know we didn’t do a good job raising Pink and-”

“No, you’re not responsible for her actions,” Spinel interrupted affirmatively. She then sighed tiredly, “Quite frankly I just want to move forward.”

The Diamonds were silent for a moment before nodding, all three admitting that they’d been stuck in the past for far too long aswell.

Spinel’s sadness was clearly still visibly in her eyes though.

Then Blue sat down on the bed to her left. “I don’t know if you remember, but there was a song we’d sing to you whenever you felt bad. Would you like for us to sing it to you?”

Spinel nodded silently.

“Cold, palace walls, and endless empty halls, haunted by echos of laughter. You gave a pull, and suddenly, befold you've thrown the gates open after you,” Blue sang while putting one arm around Spinel for a side hug.

Yellow chimed in, sitting on Spinel’s right, to give her a side hug as well, “And swept in with the throng, comes this wonderful song! My little reason why I'll never make you cry. Oh, I have got the sweetest things to tell you every day.”

White knelt in front of Spinel, taking both of her hands into her own, and sang, “My little reason why, you make me want to try, loving you.”

\--------------------------------------------

Things had been going swimmingly with the Diamonds and now Spinel spent most of her time either visiting them or preparing for finals.

She finally got the chance to revisit some of the older cartoons that she hadn't taken with her with Gran. She had sung so many of the tunes that she thought she had forgotten with Grandma. And it turns out that Grandmother was a thespian and the two of them had a lot of fun doing acting exercises together.

She brought Steven over for one visit. It was a bit awkward, but they got along well enough. Spinel was just glad that Steven was in therapy or else she’d have been worried that she’d be taking it too far.

Now, today was the day that her grandmothers would come to visit her in Beach City.

When they entered, they were looking around curiously, so Spinel began to point out where everything was, “Well, up there is Steven’s loft, here’s the kitchen, and...you’re not listening to me, are you?”

Spinel stopped talking when she realized that all of them were just staring at the coffee table. She followed their sight line and realized that they were all looking at her locket.

“You still have it?!” Blue asked in amazement.

Spinel was automatically nervous, “Oh yeah. It uhhh, got chipped and I had to set it down to allow the glue to dry.”

Now that she thought about it, she had set the last piece to dry last night. It should be dry by now. So Spinel picked it up and put her locket back around her neck. She had to admit that it felt amazing to have it again.

Spinel guiltily thought about how rough it probably looked compared to the perfect state the little gem spinel had been in when she’d first received it.

“Yeah, sorry, it’s been through a lot. But it’s still here, just looks a little different.”

“It’s wonderful,” White smiled kindly and the same sentiments were clearly written on Blue and Yellow’s faces as well.

Spinel hugged them again. She had been doing that a lot recently, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

  
  



	25. Chapter 25

Graduation went by in a flash, and before Spinel knew it, she had been handed her diploma and was walking off stage. Her fully repaired locket shined brightly from around her neck.

She felt so much adrenaline, not only had she just graduated high school, but it was June 2, her eighteenth birthday. She walked off the stage excited for the birthday/graduation celebration that awaited her.

She went back to meet with her grandmothers, Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, Steven, and Greg. They talked and when attention turned from her to Amethyst, Steven pulled her aside. “Hey, congratulations,” he told her.

“Thanks,” Spinel said, but she could tell Steven had something else on his mind.

“Soooo what are you going to do next? Are you going to move in with your grandmothers?” 

Spinel nodded, silently. There was something else Steven wanted to say, and she was desperately trying to figure out what it was.

“Well, I just wanted you to know that I’ll miss you,” he told her, looking down at the ground.

That’s when it all clicked together. Spinel realized in a flash that she had been so focused on her grandmothers and finals that she hadn’t spent too much time with Steven recently.

Immediately feeling bad, Spinel kneeled down to his height. “Yeah; Gran, Grandma, Grandmother, and me have been talking, and I am planning on moving in with them. I’m also planning on taking a gap year, so I can spend extra time with them.”

In all honesty, Spinel was tempted to stay, but she knew that there was her room waiting for her with the Diamonds and she couldn’t stay away from it any longer.

“Okay, that’s good. I’m glad that you’re happy-,” Steven tried to start. But Spinel held up a hand to let her speak.

“And, I’m also planning on returning to Beach City to visit my brother sometimes,” she said, “We still need to perfect our ukulele and accordion duet.” Steven smiled brightly and hugged her, and Spinel hugged back as tightly as she could.

For so long Spinel had felt lost, but today, right here, right now, she was full of love again. She finally felt found.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly can’t believe that this story is finally done. Thank you all so much for all of your support and nice comments. I know that I didn’t respond to all of them, but I did see each and every one of them and they never failed to put a smile on my face. You all are freaking amazing!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos make my day!


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